


sidereal

by girlbookwrm, verbalatte



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A Happy Ending because Fuck Thanos, A Wild Killmonger Appears, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Barbershop Quartet, Civil War Fix-It, Excessive Use of Astronomical Terms, Extremely NON Platonic Soulmates, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Smut, Platonic Soulmates, Polyamorous Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steve's Brand of Suicidal, Stucky AU Big Bang 2018, To the Max, Touch-Starved, Worldbuilding, aka "suicidal? me? never. but i'll cheerfully throw myself in front of a bus for a good cause.", but not the sexy kind, infinity war fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 16:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 67,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17646137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlbookwrm/pseuds/girlbookwrm, https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbalatte/pseuds/verbalatte
Summary: “…The modern viewer must remember that prior to the 1960s, soulmark portraits were the ultimate in taboo. But one can see how an artist like Captain Rogers would feel compelled to pick up his sketchbook…...Captain Rogers never did a self-portrait; we can only speculate who his soulmate — or soulmates — might have been."Franklin, Hannah. “Howling Commandos Leave their Mark in Portrait Series by Captain America.” Newsweek, July 9, 2009.





	1. binary star

**Author's Note:**

> adj. Of or relating to the stars.

 

 

## binary star

n. A stellar system in which two stars orbit around their center of mass. Half or more of visible stars are part of multiple star systems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

###  **i - pictor: the painter**  

_“…The modern viewer must remember that prior to the 1960s, soulmark portraits were the ultimate in taboo. But one can see how an artist like Captain Rogers would feel compelled to pick up his sketchbook. While his execution is unassuming, even workmanlike, the obvious care given by the artist shines through…_

_… Captain Rogers never did a self-portrait; we can only speculate who his soulmate — or soulmates — might have been. We may never know what his soulmark looked like, but we can make a reasonable assumption about its location._

_This long term exhibition will be on display until October 19, 2012.”_

_Franklin, Hannah. “Howling Commandos Leave their Mark in Portrait Series by Captain America.” Newsweek, July 9, 2011._

 

 

 

When it comes out that Captain America is alive, Steve gets a rather frantic letter from the National Portrait Gallery, giving a formal explanation, an apology, and a promise that, if he wants, they will close the exhibit down immediately. But there is a strong, almost desperate, undertone of _please don’t ask us to close it down, it’s very popular._

This is how Steve finds out that his private — _very_ private — sketchbooks have been made… extremely public.

He almost wishes that they had found the blue pictures he used to draw when money was really tight, back in Brooklyn. That would have been less embarrassing, somehow. He wants to tell them to take the the sketches down _immediately,_ but he knows that he should at least give them a chance. They offer him a private tour, and he agrees.

 

Two weeks later, he’s standing alone on the floor of the National Portrait Gallery’s most popular exhibit. It’s simple, almost austere: a round room with a series of framed pen-and-ink portraits, each one individually lit; like a tiny stage with only one actor. You can stand in the middle (and Steve does) and turn like the hands on a clock to look at all the portraits. Over the door is the title:

_And They Left Their Mark:_

_Portraits of the Howling Commandos by Steven G Rogers_

The worst thing isn't that soulmarks are unbearably personal things. In Steve’s day, his ma had worn gloves all the time because her soulmark was on her hand. The worst thing isn't that they didn’t ask permission — because they did get permission from everyone who was still alive, he can't fault them there.

The worst thing is that it’s not his best work. The linework is alright, but the colors are all over the place, and the backgrounds are only half-rendered and…

They’ve _framed_ them. They’re up behind glass. It boggles his mind. They’re practically doodles. They’re just practice sketches of an interesting subject matter. It had been a crazy idea then, not something he took seriously. Half the time they were behind enemy lines, so they were all rush jobs.  They had to have been torn out of his war sketchbook, which would’ve been stained with mud and blood and worse things.

Hell, that sketch of Dugan had been water stained across the bottom left corner. Somehow they’ve cleaned that out. Now it’s just Dugan with his shirt off, in a goofy strongman pose like he’s back in the circus, looking over his shoulder, eyes just glinting out from under the brim of his bowler. Between his shoulder blades there’s a dark mark in a roughly triangular shape. _The strongest shape in nature,_ Dugan had claimed. _That’s why everything goes on tripods._

Steve remembers that they were stalled, deep in Hydra territory when he drew Morita half buried in the front of the jeep. He was doing repairs with his shirt off and glistened with sweat, looking more like a pinup than a mechanic. The damning irregular circle between his shoulder blades was clearly visible. The army almost hadn’t admitted him, even though it wasn't legal to discriminate based on soulmarks. _A sign of his true loyalties,_ they said. But Jim maintained that it was a drop of red, all-American blood, not a bloody sunrise.   _More like a target on my back,_ he’d admitted later.

Falsworth’s wasn’t all that different, actually. Steve had drawn him doing pull-ups from a tree branch, his narrow shoulders flexed on either side of the rough red asterisk over his spine. A Union Jack, Monty had said, but something told Steve it meant more to him than that.

Gabe is there: sat with his trumpet across his lap, his bare back hunched as he cleaned it with more care than he ever gave his guns. The white horseshoe shape, and the lines that filled it… _It’s a lyre,_ Gabe told them. _Or a lucky horseshoe, my ma said. Or maybe like… a cup full of water?_

And there’s Peggy. God. _Peggy._ When they’d found out that the Howlies’ marks were all in the same spot — that was unusual, but she said it explained a lot. _You all work so well together, I suppose it's to be expected._ And then, she’d just whipped her shirt right off and turned to show him hers: a bold black mark that wasn’t quite a starburst but was breathtakingly similar in a way that made his heart stutter. _It’s a compass rose. Runs in the family. My brother had the very same mark, you know, although his was over his heart._

And he’d drawn her like that, from memory, the line of her slip framing the mark like a picture, her hair pulled up with one hand, looking back over her shoulder with her red lips slightly parted and a brow quirked and…

But it’s just a sketch. They’re all just sketches.

Steve stands in the middle of the room, puts his fist over his mouth, and goes very still. He always goes still when he’s trying to keep it together. Because these are his friends — these _were_ his friends, but now they’re gone, and this is all he has left.

He can’t even _look_ at the sketch of Bucky. He can’t bear to. He wonders if they realize that one’s in black and white because he did it before the serum. He wishes Bucky had let him do it over, in color this time. He wishes —

“Captain Rogers?”

Steve turns and sees a docent hovering in the doorway. She looks unbearably young to him. They’re probably about the same age, physically. But he feels so old, looking at these yellowing sketches.

“Yes,” he says, forcing himself to do the thing. The pleasantries. “Hi.”

“I’m Verity, I’m one of the guides here. Do you want me to walk you through the exhibit?” she asks, kindly.

He blinks at her. “It’s… I mean, I know who they all are,” he points out.

She goes pink. “Right, of course you do. Sorry. I just meant… do you have any questions?”

Steve looks back at the portraits. Ridiculously, he wants to hide them before she sees something compromising, but hell. She's already seen them. She’s probably studied them. There’s probably a lookbook in the museum shop. He rubs his forehead. He needs to adjust his perspective, here. Times have changed.

“How do people talk about soulmates these days?” Steve asks.

Verity shakes her head. This apparently wasn’t the question she was expecting. “What do you mean?”

Steve cocks his head to one side, then the other, as if giving the sketches a critical look. “I mean… So when my mom was a kid, the big thing was _Sister Carrie._ It’s all about how a mark can mean anything if you think about it hard enough. But when I was a kid, there was _The Sheik._ Which I don't think would stand up well to a rereading…” he muses. Steve pulls his eyes away from the compass rose on Peggy's back.

Verity is staring at him with a familiar glazed expression. He’s gotten that look from three separate SHIELD agents when he talked about things that were apparently not things anymore. He’d made a joke once about being a regular Will Rogers — Steve had always felt better after listening to Will Rogers cracking wise on the radio, during the darkest days of the Depression. But it turned out that no one knew about Will Rogers anymore, and it wasn’t as funny when Steve had to explain. On his first (supervised) trip into the wild (to buy coffee) he’d told his babysitter that they should bring back the NRA, but it turned out that the modern NRA did something very different from the National Recovery Administration, which had regulated prices and wages until the Supreme Court declared it illegal.

And then, of course, there was the “boner” debacle, and the “solid dick” nightmare. If they ever found another frozen fella from the 1940s, Steve would write him up a list of Slang That Means Something Else Now.

The point is, he knows the look.

“They were books,” he explains. _“The Sheik_ was a movie too. At the time it was a big deal. It’s all about how soulmarks mean destiny, you can't get away from them, no matter how much you want to.” Verity is still giving him the blank look, now with bonus squint. He clears his throat. “Pop culture. Things change. So how do people talk about soulmarks now?”

The glazed confusion morphs, dragging Steve along on Verity’s face journey of comprehension and terror. She's obviously just realizing that a national icon, who missed out on the last seventy years or so, has asked her to explain how modern people think about _the human soul,_ and possibly she’s wishing she’d taken some philosophy classes, instead of whatever classes one takes to become a guide at the National Portrait Gallery. She looks overwhelmed and underprepared. He wants to tell her that he knows exactly how she feels.

“Well there was… I mean the thing that pops into my head is _Love Actually?_ It’s a Christmas movie, but it’s really about how people who have compatible soulmarks fall in love, or fall out of love, or betray each other, or how people who _don’t_ have compatible soulmarks can still be in love, it’s…”

She trails off, then clears her throat. “You should watch it. But um.” She takes a deep breath. “I don't know how much they've told you, but… In the sixties, there was a lot of stuff about not letting race or class or gender stand between soulmarks, but also how um, soulmarks don’t have to tie you down? And that was all tied into women’s lib and the sexual revolution and… stuff.” She looks even more uncomfortable. He guesses she’s hoping desperately that she won’t have to explain, to Captain Goddamn America, what an orgy is.

“I missed a lot,” Steve says peaceably.

Verity clears her throat and hurries on. “And through the eighties and nineties there was a lot of research done? About how genetics and hormones affect soulmarks. And I guess, the prevailing theory these days is that your soulmark reflects who you are, as a person. And that… finding someone with a soulmark similar to yours… or, with a similar placement…” She shrugs and awkwardly indicates the portraits around them, the _very revealing_ and _very obvious fact_ that all the Howlies had marks in just the same place. “It just means you’re compatible. Genetically. Or biochemically. Or whatever.”

“Huh,” Steve says. “How about that.”

He knows, of course. He rolls his shoulders a bit, resists the urge to reach back and scratch at the spot between his own shoulder blades. The spot where his mark is. Because of course it is.

“It’s like you’re drift compatible!” Verity blurts.

Steve stares at her. Is this what it feels like to _have_ the glazed expression?

“That’s… that’s from a movie too,” Verity says, visibly wilting under his blank stare. “Pacific Rim. It’s… Weird but good.”

“Okay,” Steve says. He should start making a list or something.

It sounds exhausting.

“Anyway!” Verity turns on her heel. She’s blushing down to her neck now. “It’s all… much less taboo now. People talk about these things. I mean. It’s not that prejudice doesn’t exist or anything, but same-sex marriage is legal in a lot of states, and interracial marriage is legal everywhere. A lot of the stigma about soulmarks is… well people are much more relaxed about it now. I think. I mean…” she waves a hand at the walls of the exhibit. “Plenty of people do soulmark portraits now. They use them as profile pictures. There’s whole dating apps that are just… mark-based.”

Steve tries to think what that would be like: posting a picture of his mark on the internet, where anyone could see it. He’d spent so many years hiding it. But now he could just… snap a photo. And put it on… Twitter or whatever. He feels exposed just thinking about it. “Bit different from my day.”

“Uh. Yeah,” the docent agrees. She bites her lip, eyes crinkling, curiosity and shyness warring on her face.

Steve's already bracing himself for the inevitable, invasive question. _So… why didn't you include a self portrait, huh? What's your mark?_

But she surprises him.

“I have to ask. Given how taboo this kind of stuff was, and what with, you know, the war and all… How did this all get started?” Verity asks. “The portraits, I mean. It’s kind of an odd pastime for someone behind enemy lines.”

Steve doesn’t know how to tell her… It started the way everything else had started. The way everything always started for Steve.

It started with Bucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

###  **ii - aspidiske: little shield**

_**Love - What is Love?** **  
** By Robert Louis Stevenson _

_Love - what is love? A great and aching heart;_  
_Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair._  
_Mark - what’s a mark? A burn upon the skin_  
_Left by a soul, but whose? And for what sin?_  
_Life - what is life? Upon a moorland bare_  
_To see love coming and see love depart._

 

 

Steve and Bucky meet in 1930, when they are twelve and thirteen, respectively. It takes them less than a year to discover that they have the same soulmark, in the same spot, and the same color.

It’s not something that people are supposed to talk about; even if a fella had his soulmark splashed across his cheek, you ain’t supposed to say a thing about it. Simply isn’t done. But twelve and thirteen year olds are stupid, and Steve says “I dare you” and Bucky says “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” and that’s that.

It’s the silvery-white outline of a five-pointed star, as though someone carved it between their shoulder blades many years ago, leaving behind a slightly raised and irregular scar. The top of the star points directly to the base of their necks, but isn’t quite visible above a shirt collar. They have to measure it to make sure, taking turns with a battered wooden ruler, but the marks are exactly the same size. It looks brighter and bolder against Bucky’s summer tan, but bigger between Steve’s narrow shoulders, but there’s not a scrap of difference between them.

“It don't mean anything,” Steve says angrily, tugging his shirt back over his head, his hair coming out of the neckhole a mussed blond mess.

“Right,” Bucky agrees, doing up the buttons on his shirt.

It is a blatant lie. But they’re both thinking that maybe they understand why people don’t talk about their soulmarks.

The thing is that the confirmed bachelors upstairs from Steve’s place had matching soulmarks. Or — not matching, but complementary in a way that left little doubt as to what they were to each other. The one guy had a golden-tan sunburst on the skin of his shoulder, and the other had a silvery white crescent moon in exactly the same spot. They’d ended up having to leave the neighborhood — leave the _city,_ because the rumors had gotten so ugly, and the one guy had gotten so badly beaten he nearly _died._

“We’re friends is all,” Steve says.

“Yeah. Like David and Jonathan, from the Bible. They had matching soulmarks, and they weren’t…” Bucky trails off. The unspoken word hangs between them. Damning.

“Right,” Steve agrees. “Only… we maybe shouldn’t mention it to anyone.”

“Good plan,” Bucky agrees. “People ain’t gonna understand.”

“People are stupid.” Steve straightens his shirt and tucks it into his trousers.

“Right,” Bucky says, for a third and final time. Like that’s that; everything all sorted now.

But the thing is that exactly matched soulmarks are pretty damn rare. And they generally only mean one thing.

So it’s important that they keep quiet about it.

 

In the summer of 1933, Steve’s ma finds out.

The two families go to Rockaway Beach together, and Bucky — carefree idiot that he is — takes his shirt off without even _glancing_ at Steve to _check_ if maybe that is a _terrible and dangerous idea_. And then he goes running down to the water with his sisters.

Steve sulks under the umbrella with his mom and doesn’t take his shirt off. That’s not unusual; he’s self-conscious about his thin chest and crooked spine, and he burns easily.

But he can _feel_ his mother watching him watching Bucky go, and he _knows_ she’s seen the outline of that star, starkly white against Bucky’s tanned skin. It’s clearly a soulmark, not an ordinary scar or blemish: the lines are too precise, too nearly-perfect.

Naturally, she knows what her son’s soulmark is; he was born with it, like everyone else. She’d seen him as a baby, seen him as a toddler, seen him last week when he got blood on his shirt and had to sit there, thin and shirtless and cranky, while she tried to scrub it clean in the sink.

She knows. He knows. He knows that she knows. And she must know that he knows that.

He doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything. And he doesn’t know what that means.

 

A few weeks later, they go to visit Joseph Rogers’ grave. Sarah fans out a threadbare picnic blanket on the grass, sits down with her son, and pulls off the gloves she habitually wears. She lays her hand on his, her mark now plainly visible along with her scuffed wedding band.

Steve has seen the mark before, of course. It’s a pale heart shape, the pointed end near her knuckles. It’s not raised like his own star, and has exactly the greenish color of an old bruise that’s healed enough to not ache anymore. It always bothered him a little, that their marks are so different. Marks are meant to run in families — Bucky’s dad has a wispy white cloud in roughly the same spot as Bucky’s star, and his sister has a seven-pointed starburst on her knee. You can kind of see the similarity, the same way you can trace Mr. Barnes’s cleft chin through all his children.

But Steve’s mark is nothing like his mom’s. He's always wondered if—

“Your dad’s was just exactly the same as mine,” she tells him.

Steve didn’t know _that._ She never talks about his father’s mark. Steve looks up at her, eyes wide and terrified. She knows about Bucky’s mark, what if she thinks—

She smiles kindly, like she understands. “Your father wasn’t the only one,” she confides. “When I came here, on the boat, there was a nice Polish girl. Lidia. She had it too. We both wanted to be nurses, and we ended up staying in the same boarding house. Best friends from the moment we saw each other. Both of us wearing gloves for weeks and weeks before we realized.”

Steve feels as though he can’t breathe.

“And when I met your father — his best friend had it too. All four of us, like the musketeers. Put our left hands together and…”

Suddenly Steve can see it in his head. Four greenish heart shapes, their pointed ends put together… “A four leafed clover,” he says.

She nods, beaming at him. “Joe and I had to explain about four leafed clovers being good luck, us being the only properly educated Irish folk in the group.”

Steve’s mind is racing, but all he can think to ask is: “Did it bring you luck?”

“The very best,” his mother says. “Three best friends, one of them the best husband a girl could ask for.”

“But…” His mom has plenty of friends, but none of them have soul marks on their left hands. “What happened?”

Sarah sighs and brushes Steve's hair back from his forehead. “The War happened, love. We all wanted to help. If I hadn't been pregnant with you at the time, I'd have gone too. Lidia went to be a nurse. Your father joined up. And… and so did Steve.”

Steve jerks up straight. He stares at his mom, eyes wide like saucers. She makes a wry little face. “It was your father’s idea to name you after Uncle Steve, not mine.”

“None of them came back?” Steve asks.

The mournful look on Sarah’s face tells him everything he needs to know. “We were young; we thought we were invincible. No one’s invincible.”

Steve looks down. “Not so lucky after all, then?”

“Oh my darling boy. I may have lost my lucky clover, but… ” his mom leans in conspiratorially. “I found my lucky star, didn't I?” She bumps her shoulder against his, and rubs her hand up and down his spine, across the star on his back. It’s soothing and a little intimate, like when she runs her fingers through his hair.

Steve closes his eyes and lets his shoulders slump.

“I think,” she starts to say, barely softening the th-sound, the remains of her accent lingering despite her best efforts. “I think that maybe it runs in our family, you know? When we find our people, we latch on strong. My mother’s mark was a cloud — not uncommon, I know, but it was right there on her cheek, and that’s not exactly normal, is it. And so was my dad’s, and my aunt, and my uncles… It’s just that when we find our people, we _know.”_

She squeezes the back of his neck gently. “It only means what you decide it means, lad. I know folk don’t talk about it, but it just means you two fit together,” she says, softly. “Nothing scary about that.”

Steve looks away.

He’s pretty sure it means more than just that. But he can’t say that. So he says something else instead. “And if I lose him? Like you lost them?” He looks up.

Her face is sad. “I’m not gonna lie to you, I never have. You could lose him. And if you do, it’ll knock you down.” She squeezes his shoulder. “But you’ll get back up. You _always_ stand up, Steve.”

 

In 1934, they’re sixteen and seventeen, respectively, and Bucky hasn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. Steve’s scrawny as all hell, and Bucky’s grown _out_ more than he’s grown _up._

The two of them get cornered by a gang of boys from school who took exception to Steve calling them out on their disrespectful behavior. They managed to get themselves completely surrounded. Steve is backing towards Bucky, and Bucky is backing towards Steve, both of them with their fists raised.

“This only happens when you’re around, you notice that?” Bucky says, tipping his head slightly to talk over his shoulder to Steve.

“This only happens when I’m right and everyone else is wrong,” Steve says, not taking his eyes off the boy in front of him. The bully is rolling up his sleeves menacingly. He’s got big meat shovel hands. He claps them together, like Steve’s mom does when she’s about to pummel bread dough into submission.

“Just because you’re right,” Bucky says, and his voice is even closer now, right over Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t mean we’re gonna win.”

And then Bucky’s back presses against Steve’s. Through their shirts and threadbare jackets, their soulmarks bump together like two loose wires that suddenly spark and connect.

Something in Steve just _comes alive._

Time pauses for breath. Steve’s head goes back, gaze fixing on the brilliant blue sky visible between the roofs of the buildings. His eyes are wide and for a minute all he can hear is his own heart, the blood rushing in his ears, and Bucky, breathing hard.

_Oh,_ he thinks. _That’s what it means._

And then time starts up again, but it’s thick as taffy and twice as rich, everything heightened and softened. It’s like no other fight they’ve ever been in before. They don’t move like they did before. Something has clicked, like they’re one mind across two bodies.

Steve turns and finds Bucky already there, catching a punch headed for Steve’s gut. Bucky moves out of the way and Steve is there, ready to throw a fist into the face of his attacker. Steve feels a tingle between his shoulder blades, and turns in time to throw himself on a guy about to smash a brick against Bucky’s skull.

It’s electric; it’s like a dance, but one that Steve actually knows the steps to.

They win.

That alone would be memorable, but once they’re the only ones left  in the alley, the tension only builds.

They stand there, just a coupla idiots gaping at each other. Blood is trickling from the corner of Bucky’s mouth, and from Steve’s nose.  Bucky’s eyes have gone dark, and he’s breathing hard, lips parted. Steve notices the shape of Bucky’s mouth, the way he’s got a slight overbite when his lips part like that, the cleft in his chin, the softness in his face. He can’t stop staring. Bucky’s lips are pink. When did that happen? When did Steve start noticing that? Why can’t he stop?

“S-steve?” Bucky says.

Steve answers by throwing himself across the alley. He grabs Bucky’s face and puts his mouth on Bucky’s mouth. It’s not much of a kiss; there’s no tenderness in it, just his nose bumping into Bucky’s and the taste of Bucky’s blood mixing with his own.

He doesn’t think about it — if he had, he might not have done it at all. If he’d thought about it, he might have expected Bucky to push him back, throw a punch, or make a muffled noise of protest, and look at him with disgust, after. But he didn’t think about it, so he didn’t think it would be like this:

Bucky meets him, hunger for hunger, grabs at his waist hard enough to leave bruises. Bucky leans in and pushes Steve back one step after another until Steve is pinned right up against the wall, pressed between the cool, rough brick and the warm bulk of Bucky.

Steve snakes his skinny arm around and digs his fingers into the space between Bucky’s shoulder blades, clawing at the soulmark hidden there. Bucky breaks the kiss, throws his head back and hisses “Oh _hell, Stevie—”_

And when Bucky reaches around and paws at Steve’s back too, Steve _gets it_. It’s nothing like fingers running through his hair. It’s nothing like anything else he’s ever felt. It plugs directly into his spine, makes his heart pound, makes the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck tingle. “Buh— Bucky, Jesus—”

And then, as quick and violent as it started, it ends. Bucky shoves away from the kiss, staggers back a couple steps, and let his hands fall to his sides. There’s red smeared across his chin — Steve’s blood or Bucky’s, there’s no way to tell. “We shouldn’t,” Bucky says.

“I know,” Steve says.

“We _can’t_.”

“I _know.”_

Bucky stares at him, all agony and desire. “I wanna,” he confesses.

“Me too,” Steve admits.

There is no question, after that, about what the marks mean. They both know perfectly well.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iii - asterope: starry-eyed**  

_“During the Great Depression and New Deal Era (a period when many American men felt emasculated by economic hardship) anxiety about homosexuality reached such a fever pitch that some medical professionals suggested allowing soulmark examinations in trials for sodomy and sexual deviancy. Fortunately for the LGBT community living in secret, this idea never gained any serious traction in the court system.”_

_Elliot, K. C. Illegal Souls: Soulmarks and the Law. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006._

 

 

 

Bucky is no fool. He knows that there’s no future in it. It’s a doomed thing from the first moment.

Not that Steve cares about that. And Steve not caring... that’s a powerful thing. He stands there with his hands balled into fists too big for his skinny arms, and tips his head back, defiant. _Who cares? I don’t._ It makes Bucky want to smack Steve upside the head and call him a dope. It makes Bucky want to sigh like a lovestruck dame. It makes him _stupid._ It makes him _scared._

Things he should say pile up behind his teeth: _This is a bad idea. We gotta stop. I can’t see you anymore. It’s dangerous._

But this thing they got — it’s like a spark between them. If he breathes on it, even just to say _no_ or say _yes,_ it might go out. Or it might burst into a bonfire. He ain’t sure which would be worse, so he says nothing, and lets it smolder.

It’s just _there,_ between them. It’s a thing they do, sometimes, even when they aren’t supposed to. Sometimes they sneak into Ebbett’s Field without buying tickets. Sometimes they get their hands on drinks they ain’t supposed to have. And sometimes they find a space between spaces — the back of the theater, the filthy alley behind the diner, the fire escape after sunset — and Bucky gets to steal a kiss. Bucky likes kissing, same as he likes bubblegum and lollipops and smokes. Steve likes kissing, but he likes biting more. Sometimes he combines the two and that makes Bucky’s eyes cross a little.

But they don’t go further, and they _never_ talk about it...

But Bucky Barnes is no fool, even if Steve Rogers makes him stupid and scared. This could _ruin their lives_ if it gets out. And Steve’s smart, but he’s not great at keeping his mouth shut. He’s not great at lying, hates doing it, hates even _misleading_ people unless it’s for one of his idiotic plans.

Which means it’s up to Bucky.

For the first time in his life, Bucky finds himself having to lie almost every day. To his mom, to his dad, to his sisters. He’s not going to risk them finding out.

He starts taking girls to the pictures (even though he’d rather go with Steve.) He starts taking them dancing too — he _loves_ music, loves dancing, and a good time is had by all. Sometimes the dates end with a kiss, but mostly he gets a reputation for being a real stand-up guy, the kind of guy who can be trusted to take you out for a good time and leave you alone after.

But he’s gotta play both sides, because the fellas on the baseball team always ask. He can usually get away with saying something like “a gentleman never tells” and then winking raunchily. That seems to work most of the time.

There’s a rush in the deception — it feels like he and Steve are _getting away with something,_ and that’s a thrill in and of itself. And there are definite advantages. He learns to tweak who he is depending on who he’s with, which makes it easy to get along with folks. He’s real good at ingratiating himself to teachers and priests and parents, without seeming like a brown-noser.

Before long, he’s the golden boy of their neighborhood.

But it’s all a carefully constructed lie.

It’s like being on stage, under the lights and the pressure, all day every day. Like he’s trapped out in the open with nowhere to hide and everyone watching. But at the same time, it’s claustrophobic. He starts to feel like that fella from the Poe story. Except instead of some other guy bricking him in, he’s doing it to himself. He’s building walls between himself and everyone.

Everyone who ain’t Steve. Steve’s the only person he can talk to without constantly listening to what he’s going to say in his head before he lets it out of his mouth.

It’s exhausting, and Steve is the only place he can get some damn rest anymore.

 

* * *

 

Steve turns eighteen in 1936. There are fireworks going off somewhere, close enough that they can get a decent view of them from the rooftop. And everyone else from the building is out on the street eating hot dogs, so they’ve got that rooftop all to themselves. _Lookit that, Stevie. Private show._

Steve and Bucky are sitting side by side, legs dangling over the edge, watching the sky. Steve doesn’t look at Bucky’s upturned face, but he knows that the dim glow of blue and red and white is softer than any kiss Steve has ever given him.

“It ain’t fair,” Steve whispers.

He could be talking about how he can’t afford to go to art school properly, the way he wants. He could be talking about how his mom is sick again. But they both know what Steve is really talking about.

“I know,” Bucky says.

Bucky started stepping out with Dorothy Hoffman — _Dot_ — after their last trip to Coney Island. She has a peculiar cloudlike mark on her left ankle. A perfectly normal soulmark, in a perfectly normal spot. _Nothing like Bucky’s,_ Steve thinks, vicious in a way that Dot probably doesn’t deserve _._ He knows that she’s not serious about Bucky, and he’s not serious about her. They just like each other. It isn’t going to go anywhere.

But God, it makes Steve _burn_ to watch Dot stepping out with Buck. Why can't _he_ step out with Buck? It’s carved into their skin, into their _souls._  Anyone could see it, if they bothered to look. He and Bucky were _made for each other._ How dare _anyone_ keep them apart?

“It ain’t _right,”_ Steve says, a little louder.

“I know.” Bucky sounds resigned. “But just because you’re right, don’t mean we’re gonna win.”

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t _fight,”_ Steve says.

Bucky heaves a gusty, exasperated sigh. “Steve. People _expect_ me to step out with pretty dames. If I don’t, they’ll ask questions. They’ll ask questions about _you._ So seeing as you and me live here, in the real world, can we just…”

“Can we just _what?”_ Steve says, prickly as ever.

“Just _be here?_ You and me? Just for now?” Bucky sounds so tired.

Steve gets it. Bucky’s a performer, and he loves it; the show, the whole golden boy routine. He smiles and smiles and smiles and he’s so _good at it._ He talks and people listen, like he’s the only actor on the stage. He walks around in a constant spotlight. Steve doesn’t know how anyone can ever stand to look away from him.

But.

It takes a toll; it takes a toll on Bucky, and Steve’s the only one Bucky doesn’t have to perform for. He’s the only one who _knows_ Bucky. All his awkward ugly parts and unpolished edges.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay.”

Bucky sighs, and Steve snakes his hand up behind Bucky’s back and splays it across his spine, over the mark. It’s a little intimate, and a lot possessive. Bucky’s shoulders relax. His forehead falls against Steve’s shoulder. He squirms his head a little until his face is pressed into the side of Steve’s neck. Fireworks pop overhead, the light hitting long seconds before the sounds reach them.

“But...” Steve bites his lip.

“Mmm?” Bucky sounds a little drowsy, the way he does whenever Steve touches him like that. It makes Bucky lazy and cat-like, where it makes Steve feel like he’s ramping up for something.

It’s never gone further than this between them, not in _two goddamn years._ Just stolen kisses and _this._ And God, it would be enough — it would be more than enough, but…

“But what?” Bucky presses, not lifting his face from Steve’s neck.

Steve screws up his courage. “What happens when you meet someone better than Dot?” he asks.

He feels Bucky’s brow scrunching up. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean. Someday there’ll be a gal who… has a star maybe, or maybe something else, but it’s here…” he rubs his thumb over the spot between Bucky’s shoulders. “Or…” He doesn’t like to think what’ll happen to him if Bucky meets a dame with just the same mark, in just the same spot. “And what happens then?”

Bucky shrugs. “Nothing, probably.”

“Nothing?” Steve doesn’t buy it.

“Look. If she’s close enough to have the same mark as us, then she’ll know better than to try and come between us,” Bucky says. “That’s just common sense. You can’t seriously think I’d pick some dame over you.” He’s got that look, like Steve is being stupider than usual, his face all scrunched up. “Who cares what kinda soulmark she’s got?”

“I care. Everyone cares, Buck.”

_“I_ don’t.”

“Yeah you do, you just don’t know it yet.”

“Don’t tell me what I know and what I don’t.”

“You’d be crazy not to—”

“Jesus, it’s like you’re trying to talk me into leaving you, pal, what the hell?” Bucky stops. “Wait. Are you?” he asks, looking sick all of a sudden, and Steve can’t stand it.

“No!” he hurries to say. “God, no. I’m just…”

“Just what?”

Steve swallows. He swallows again. “Just… If you’re gonna leave me someday, I gotta start getting ready now, you know?” It’s gonna happen eventually, and it’s gonna _hurt,_ and Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t know what he’ll be if he loses Bucky.

Bucky’s heart breaks all over his face. He cracks open like an egg, all his sympathy and his aching love there for Steve to see. “Pal,” he says, soft as anything. “Don’t matter if she’s got my name written on her in neon lights. She won’t be _you,”_ he says.

Steve’s heart is pounding. That’s not really an explanation, but it _feels_ huge, somehow. “Is that how it is?”

Bucky’s mouth ticks up on one side and his brows lift. “Yeah, pal. That’s how it is.”

The fireworks pop and crackle in the distance. Bucky fits his mouth over Steve's and Steve thinks: _I'll kill anyone who tries to take you away from me._

 

* * *

 

That September, Steve’s mom dies. Steve doesn’t cry. Here’s the thing Bucky’s starting to realize: he’s not the only performer. Steve wears a brave face every day, and the day they put his mom in the ground is no different. It’s almost scary to watch the way Steve takes his grief and squishes it down inside himself, just folds it up like old clothes and locks it away, and away, and away. Steve doesn’t cry at the service and he doesn’t cry at her graveside and he doesn’t cry when folks tell him how sorry they are. He doesn’t cry outside his apartment and he doesn’t cry when Bucky wheedles him into coming back to the Barnes house. He doesn’t cry where anyone else can see.

But Bucky isn’t _anyone else._

They put the couch cushions on the floor by Bucky’s bed in the upstairs bedroom. Bucky gets spare quilts and pillows out of the trunk at the foot of his bed. He turns back around with his arms full of blankets to find that in the five seconds he had his back turned, Steve has snapped. He’s standing there with his face all screwed up, shoulders shaking, eyes red and overflowing. He’s scrubbing fast at his cheeks and not making a single sound.

Bucky stares, frozen, eyes huge and round.

Steve glares and lets out a single hiccupping sob, quickly smothered.

Bucky drops the blankets and pillows with a thump and crosses the room in two steps to put his arms around Steve.

“I’m fine,” Steve says in a voice like broken glass.

Bucky just squeezes harder until Steve drops his head onto Bucky’s shoulder and they both drop down onto the couch cushions.

Bucky holds Steve while he gasps and sobs silently into his shoulder. He shakes hard at first — like there’s an earthquake inside him, barely contained in his skinny frame — and then less and less as the quiet storm passes. The tears run dry and Steve runs out of strength to keep himself upright.

Bucky’s never seen Steve like this. He just goes limp, and trusts Bucky to hold him up. Of course Bucky does. He pulls Steve up into his arms, and takes Steve to the bed. The guy is light as a feather, but there’s gravity to the moment, Bucky thinks. It’s not just the weight of Steve’s grief, it’s the weight of his trust.

Steve would never trust anyone else to see him like this, and Bucky cradles the thought like a tender thing, like a baby bird. He holds Steve with Steve’s knees across his lap, Steve’s arms tucked in against his chest. Bucky’s back is against the headboard, his chin on top of Steve’s head. He doesn’t say anything, just rubs his hand up and down Steve’s spine and waits. He can do this all night, if Steve wants.

When Steve finally stirs, it’s to tip his head up for a salty kiss. One leads to another, and the life comes back into Steve’s bones. He pulls at Bucky’s shoulders, his waist, grabs his damn _ears_ to hold him in place and kiss him with building hunger.

He pulls back and looks at Bucky with a crazed gleam in his blue-green eyes.

_Shit._

It’s Steve’s bad idea, because of course it is. Bucky would not have chosen to have Steve this way for the first time on the day of Sarah’s funeral, with the rest of the Barneses sleeping right downstairs. But Steve is nothing if not determined when he wants something. He wants _Bucky_ and he wants Bucky _now._ And Bucky… Bucky would do anything to bring Steve some measure of peace.

So Steve says “I dare you,” whisper soft in the darkness, and Bucky says “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” and that’s that.

They gotta be _so quiet._ The floor of Bucky’s bedroom is thin, and the bed squeaks. Bucky decides right away what he’s gonna do here. He gets on his knees, for practicality’s sake. Within minutes, Steve’s shoving his fist into his mouth, pressing his palm flat over the star on Bucky’s back as Bucky’s head bobs and bobs and—

Bucky had made Steve swear to keep quiet, but Bucky makes the more noise, of the two of them. He’s caught off guard by how much he _likes_ it. He can’t contain a soft groan at the taste of Steve on his tongue, and the feel of Steve’s hand against his mark, like Steve’s got his fingers on every one of Bucky’s buttons all at once. It makes him feel crazed, out of control. He can’t help gasping out Steve’s name, just the once. It’s mostly muffled in the skin of Steve’s thigh. Steve doesn’t even get the chance to lay a hand on him — Bucky shudders into his own fist, gasping a little too loud.

But no one overhears them. It’s fine. Steve’s a little disappointed that he doesn’t get the chance to return the favor, but Bucky doesn’t mind. Quite the opposite, obviously.

“You and your oral fixation,” Steve mumbles, watching Bucky running his tongue over his lips. They kiss a little, and Steve makes a face at the taste. Bucky kinda liked it. Dazedly, he thinks he might maybe be a little more queer than he suspected. It scares him a little, but it’s hard to feel _really_ scared with Steve at his side.

Afterwards, Steve sleeps with his head pillowed on Bucky’s chest, reddened lids flickering softly with his dreams, his long lashes still salty.

Bucky watches over him.

 

* * *

 

Steve and Bucky move in together, but it takes careful planning and negotiation. They don’t want to be too close to the neighborhood they grew up in — they don’t want to see _too many_ familiar faces, after all. But it’s not like they can move to the Village or anything. That would be a bit of a giveaway. They find a little shoebox apartment on the other side of Brooklyn. Mrs. Barnes complains a little about how far it is, and how they’d better be prepared to come to her, because she’s not schlepping her bad hip all the way across town just to bring them casserole.

They don’t make friends with the neighbors, but nor do they make enemies with the neighbors. Steve ingratiates them both to the gossipy old ladies by being his usual fastidiously righteous and respectful self. Bucky makes sure to go dancing every night, with a different girl, usually.

Steve doesn’t like it, but he gets to take out his frustrations in new and inventive ways when Bucky discovers (and finally confesses) how much he enjoys having Steve behind him, taking him, digging his fingernails into the mark on his back while he goes at it for all he’s worth.

And sometimes, when they’re together, Steve feels like his body is his own, not something for doctors to poke and prod and worry over.

Of course, that doesn’t stop Steve from getting sick.

 

* * *

 

By the time they’ve been living together a year, Bucky notices the itchy ache in his bones that comes without warning. It’s hard to pin down; it doesn’t feel quite real. Takes him a while to work out what exactly it means, but by 1938 he’s got it pretty well figured out.

Soul bond. The connection between them is getting stronger, they’re starting to feel it, feel each other’s aches and pains. They say that some people, people with _really strong_ soulbonds, can feel each other’s feelings, nearly read each other’s minds. But that’s probably just an old wives’ tale.

Still. Bucky feels the ache and stops to pick up chicken soup on the way home instead of waiting for Steve to admit to anything. Steve _never_ admits to anything.

Sure enough, Steve is scowling at his latest drawing assignment (he’s doing a political comic for that socialist rag his friend Arnie works for) and there’s a flush high in his cheeks.

“You’re coming down with something,” Bucky tells him, before setting down a bowl of chicken soup at Steve’s elbow.

“Am not?” Steve says, frowning at him.

“Yeah you are,” Bucky tells him, and feels a terrible swell of fondness. Sometimes Steve will get so caught up in his work that he’ll fail to notice things like time passing or meals or the fact that he’s starting to come down with something.

“How would you know,” Steve grumbles.

Bucky just ruffles his hair and goes to make some toast.

 

* * *

 

Later, when Steve’s sleeping badly because the fever has set up tent in his joints and is making everything achey, Bucky spoons in behind him and murmurs:

_I know because I can feel it, in my bones, like old Mr. Jenkins can feel storms coming. It’s in my bones cuz it’s in your bones, see?_

Steve’s never sure if he dreamt that or not.

 

* * *

 

It’s the little things that _really_ matter.

When Steve claps Bucky on the back, Bucky feels himself relax a little under the touch, like that simple touch is lifting a weight off his shoulders.

When it’s too hot to do anything at all, they sit with their shirts off and their backs pressed together, sticky and overheated and just… it sets up a reverberating hum between the two of them. Steve gets twitchy if they sit still too long, but even so, it’s nice.

And to Bucky’s surprise, Steve can dance just fine if Bucky takes the lead. Bucky loves music, he’s always humming some song or other. Steve’s tone-deaf and can’t keep a rhythm to save his life, but he tolerates Bucky’s foot-tapping and jaunty whistling with a kind of bemused fondness. And he seems to actively like letting Bucky pull him off the couch when a particularly beloved song comes on. “Actively like” in this scenario means that he grumbles at first, but he lets Bucky wheedle him into it, and soon he’s smiling, his ears going pink. They turn on the radio and dance all night with Bucky’s thumb just grazing the bottom left corner of Steve’s mark.

Steve puts his head on Bucky’s shoulder and moves where Bucky wants him to go and it’s just _perfect._ Bucky wonders if you can _die_ from something like this. _Let’s build a stairway to the stars,_ Ray Eberle sings, and Bucky thinks he’s already there. He’s already there.

 

* * *

 

And then: the war.

 

* * *

 

“Let me draw you,” Steve says, the night before Bucky leaves for England.

Bucky’s uniform is, by that point, sprawled across the apartment, and he is gloriously naked in Steve’s bed, the sheets tangled up around his waist and between his legs. Neither Steve nor Bucky have any intention of sleeping tonight; their last night together before Bucky goes to the front. But just now they’re in a nice lull between bouts, and it’ll be ages before Steve can get it up again anyway. Bucky doesn’t mind. And Steve wants to draw him.

“What, like this?” Bucky says, smirking. He puts his hands behind his head. His hair has come out of the pomade, reverting to a riot of curls.

“No,” Steve says, kicking him with a bare toe. “Put some pants on.”

Bucky sighs dramatic disappointment but does put on pants. He’s reaching for his undershirt when Steve says: “No shirt.”

“Oh yeah?” Bucky says, the smirk returning.

“Don’t get any ideas, Mister,” Steve says primly. “Siddown.”

“Where do you want me?”

“Table’s fine.”

“How long’s this gonna take, huh?” Bucky asks, sitting backwards in his chair, resting his chin on his hands on the top of the ladderback.

Steve rolls his eyes. Bucky is _terrible_ at staying still while Steve draws him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can read while I sketch, Jitterbug.”

Bucky snatches his latest dimestore pulp off the stack of dimestore pulps and opens it on the table in front of him. Within seconds, he’s immersed.

Steve settles in on the couch and starts getting the rough outline of the scene down: the table, and the chair, and the other chair, with Bucky’s uniform jacket and hat hanging. They’re unmistakable, but barely sketched in. Steve doesn’t have time to waste on tables and clothes. He needs to get the curve of Bucky’s back right, the hunch of his shoulders, the way his hair is mussed at the back… and his mark.

He can tell the instant Bucky realizes what Steve is drawing, because his head comes up, sharply, and he starts to turn.

“Don’t move,” Steve whispers, and Bucky goes still, but doesn’t return to his previous position. Steve swallows, and his throat clicks. His pencil has barely outlined the shape of the star, but it feels almost too raw, too personal. “Please?” he says. “I know it’s a lot, but…”  

_But I can’t go with you like this, and I can’t keep you here, and if this thing with Erskine doesn’t work, if I lose you, I want to have this much, at least._

“Just in case?” Steve says, pencil still hovering over the paper.

Bucky puts his chin back where it was, but he stops reading. He practically holds his breath, he goes so still.

Steve draws.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iv - aldebaran: the follower**

_“Soulmarks, like birthmarks, can be removed or changed with cosmetic surgery. But unlike ordinary birthmarks, soulmarks can also be affected by certain extreme metabolic changes. People undergoing hormone replacement therapy sometimes report soulmark changes, as do those with certain immunological disorders. Changes in your soulmark do not seem to have a significant effect on the MPR (Mate Pain Response)...”_

_Mayo Clinic Staff. “Soulmark-Related Changes and Symptoms.” Mayo Clinic. Last modified August 24, 2018._

 

 

 

Bucky wakes up in a trench in a cold sweat. Something is _wrong._ Something inside him feels _different._ He’s shaking real bad, bad as Rebecca did when she fell and broke her leg. But he’s not in pain. Is he? No.

_Steve,_ he thinks, without quite knowing why.

Breathing hard, he pushes his way out of his pack and opens his collar enough to shove his hand down the back of his shirt. The mark is lumpy under his fingers. He traces the thin line of it with his middle finger, right up to the top of the point.

It feels the same. It feels fine, same as ever. But at the same time, he feels...

Better? Warmer maybe. Like his chest’s a little bigger, like he can breathe a little easier. Like he’s more awake. Kind of the way he does when the adrenaline starts to hit and everything gets that little bit clearer.

Bucky’s gran had said that if you ever lost a soulmate, you’d know it. You’d _feel_ it. This is definitely _something,_ but it’s nothing like what he imagined. He rubs at the top of his soulmark and frowns, wondering what it means. Maybe he can ask Steve, somehow. He’d have to phrase it carefully, he doesn’t want the censors finding him out and giving him a blue ticket home.

On the one hand, he thinks grimly, if they discharged him, he’d be able to shake the truth out of Steve and figure out what the hell _that_ was about. But on the other hand, if he got a blue discharge — neither honorable nor dishonorable — everyone would know, and that would be the end of a lot of things.

He tips his helmet back, tips his head back against the walls of the trench and listens to mortars coming down somewhere far away.

He misses Steve so bad he thinks it’s gonna make him sick.

 

* * *

 

After the serum, and the shots fired, and Erskine dying, and the chase, and the agent dying too, and the swell of helplessness, of feeling utterly, utterly useless — Steve gets the follow up exam he knew was coming. Everything checks out, until he takes his shirt off and the nurse sucks in a sharp breath.

“What?” Steve asks, head coming up.

The nurse — her name is Betty, he recalls — looks at him. Her eyes are wide, and a little bloodshot, obviously still upset about Dr. Erskine, but this isn’t that. “Um. It’s…” She goes a little pink. “Your mark. Sorry.”

_“What?”_ Steve says, a little sharper than he means. He tries to twist around, to pull his shoulder forward, to _see,_ but—

Eventually, she gets him in front of a mirror, and by twisting his head around, he can see —

The outlined star between his shoulder blades has filled in with a silvery white, and when he twists around and reaches back, he can just feel that the whole thing is raised like an old scar, and weirdly tender. How had he not noticed that when he came out of the Vita-Ray Machine?

“Are you — Do you feel alright?” the nurse asks.

“Is it smaller?” He blurts out. His grip pulling his shoulder around has gone white-knuckled. “It looks smaller—”

“I could be wrong,” the nurse says, tone soothing, “but I _think_ the rest of you has gotten _slightly_ bigger.”

Steve thinks of Bucky. Bucky at the beach, their shared soulmark looking smaller and brighter on his broad, tanned back. Bucky, in a trench somewhere, teeth gritted and thinking of Steve. Bucky, thirteen years old and smiling, having just saved Steve's ass for the first time. Bucky, sitting with his back to Steve and his head tipped back onto Steve’s shoulder and their marks, _their perfectly matching marks,_ pressed together.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” The nurse is looking at him, warily.

“Yeah,” Steve lies. “I guess I'm… I guess I'm really a different person now, huh?”

The nurse looks unnerved, and maybe — yeah, she's definitely a little scared of him.

He's more than a little scared of himself.

 

And when, weeks later, Brandt presents him with the final costume design, Steve feels more humiliated than he could have ever imagined, because that’s it — that’s his _soulmark_ and they’ve splashed it across his _chest_ for every Tom, Dick, and fucking Harry to gawp at. His mark belongs to him, and to Bucky, and to no one else, or — well.

It had. Before.

The only way Steve is able to cope with it all is by telling himself that it isn’t _his_ soulmark. It’s _Captain America’s_ soulmark. His mark is still there, underneath, where only he and Bucky know about it. Hidden from view. Shielded.

 

* * *

 

Dugan’s got a soulmate back home in the City, and he talks about her _all the time._ It’s irritating as _fuck._

It takes Bucky _ages_ to work up the courage to ask him. He practices twelve different answers to the inevitable _I thought you said you didn’t have a soulmate_ questions, but...

“Hey Dum Dum,” Bucky says one day while they’re smoking in a quiet moment between bombardments. “Your girl back home. You ever get like… soul bond feelings or whatever, from her?”

Dugan’s big dumb face lights up. “Sure do. She’s a real firecracker, never listens to a damn thing I say, and I remember this one time she cut open her hand in a bar fight—” Dugan’s girl served drinks at a dive in the Bronx somewhere, as he would tell anyone who sat still long enough “—and I knew the instant she had. I was miles away, helping my dad set up the tent, and just dropped the hammer, all—” he mimes gaping at his hand, then grins. “I _knew_ something was _wrong,_ you know?”

“Is it always bad like that?” Bucky asks, thinking of the other night, and the way he still feels… off inside. Strange.

Dugan takes a drag, but he’s still smiling. “Nah. Sometimes I find myself just in a good mood for no fuckin’ reason and later I found out that something real nice happened to _her,_ you know?”

“Yeah but what’s that feel like?”

Dugan makes a face. “S’hard to put into words. You’d know it if you felt it.”

“Right.” Bucky resists the urge to rub at his sternum, that spot inside him where the new feeling of openness sits. “I guess I would.”

“It’ll happen to you someday,” Dugan assures him cheerily. “Stand up guy like you? You’ll find someone.”

“If I ever get outta here,” Bucky says, the misdirection slipping easy from his tongue. It’s habit by now.

Dugan’s face falls a little. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes I think about what she’s gonna feel, if something happens to me, you know?”

Bucky swallows. Because yeah, he’s thought about that too.

 

* * *

 

In Wichita, Matilda-call-me-Mattie passes out on stage.

She’s just standing in the line as usual while Steve’s doing his bit, getting ready to pull his punch for Joe, the guy who plays Hitler. Then, without warning, she lets out a startled little cry that's more than half gasp. Steve turns in time to see Helen and Mary sagging under her dead weight. Steve and Joe kind of ruin the show by rushing forward together to catch her.

Someone has the good sense to drop the curtain and Steve takes charge without really  thinking about it. He orders Joe to call for an ambulance and steps out front to shout for a doctor in the audience. Mattie’s pulse is racing and her breath is coming way too fast and shallow for Steve’s liking. There’s no doctor in the audience but there is a nurse who pushes her hat into her son’s hands and climbs up on stage to help.

Mattie is still out like a light, the other girls are following Steve’s directions, and Steve is following the nurse’s, because he knows better than to not.

The nurse (Alice, call me Alice) is asking whether anyone remembers Mattie eating earlier, or drinking water, when Mattie sits bolt upright, and clutches at her ribs on the left side, and _screams._

Steve can only stare — all of them can only stare as Mattie starts frantically tearing at the side of her costume, and _sobbing._ “No, no, no, no—”

“Oh god,” says one of the girls. It’s Mattie’s friend Georgia, and she pushes forward. “Oh honey,” she says. “Oh honey I’m so sorry.” She catches Mattie’s hands and pulls them away from her side. “Shhh, no, honey, don’t.”

Alice the nurse pulls back, something on her face going stony.

“What’s—”

One of the other girls grabs Steve’s elbow and pulls him away. They’re all stepping back now, giving Mattie space, letting Georgia comfort her. “I don’t—” Steve says. “What are you—?”

The girl who grabbed Steve’s elbow is called Bernadette, and she shakes her head sharply, her honey-blonde curls bouncing around her shoulders. She drags Steve away a few more steps before saying: “She’s got a soulmark on her left side and a fiancee in North Africa.” Bernadette swallows. “Or she did, I’m guessing,” she adds grimly.

Steve’s stomach turns over. “Oh.”

“Yeah, fucking _oh,”_ Bernadette says, because she was raised in the worst corner of the Bronx and she does not have time to spare for niceties.

“I’ll go tell the ambulance they can go,” Steve says.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” One of the other girls chimes in. “Couldn’t they… do something for her? Doesn’t it hurt? They say it hurts.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Norma. It doesn’t hurt,” Bernadette says, sharp. “Not like that, it doesn’t.” And then she says: “I need a fucking cigarette,” and storms towards the stage door.

“It looked like it hurt,” Norma whispers.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Steve says. “She’s not in any pain that an ambulance can help with.”

Norma looks at him with wide eyes. “Have _you...?”_ she blurts.

Steve shakes his head. “My ma said it doesn’t hurt. She said a thing can’t hurt if it ain’t there anymore.”

But Mattie is still softly keening into Georgia’s shoulder, over on the other side of the stage, and Steve thinks about old Mr. Jenkins, who didn’t have any legs at all, but always said that he could feel his knees aching in the cold weather. And sometimes he would go to scratch his foot, and he’d hit empty air, and feel sick. He wonders if his ma was lying, about how losing a soulmate didn’t hurt  — at least not like that. He gets a chill and has a sudden terror that it’s not _his_ chill, that somewhere out there, Bucky is aching.

 

* * *

 

Bucky is about to pull the trigger when the Nazi he’s aiming at vanishes in a crackle of bright blue light. He yanks his eye away from the scope and peers over the lip of his foxhole. “What the—”

Another flash, like a Buck Rogers laser beam, and another Nazi is just ashes and dust. And then a bunch of them, a rapid staccato spray of blue light, an eerie, whining sound and the _WHOMP_ of whatever the fuck blue ray gun they’re using over there.

_That’s it,_ Bucky thinks, _I’ve finally fucking snapped._ Because there’s no gun on God’s green earth that can do that.

And then the new guy — the radio operator they picked up when Kowalski bit it — says: “What the hell was that?” and there’s dull cheering coming from the ranks all around them. They stand up, looking around, trying to figure out which of their companies is firing the magic blue guns.

But all the other companies are behind them, Bucky knows. They were bringing up the rear. Baker Company had the ridge, they were supposed to cover the retreat of Able company and the others. There were no Allied companies anywhere behind them.

So who—

And then the rumbling starts, so deep in the ground, so deep in Bucky’s chest he’s sure _Steve_ can feel it too, wherever he is. And the tank coming over the hill is the size of a goddamn _house._

“That looks… different,” Dugan says.

Bucky didn’t hear about anything like _this_ coming down the pike from Allied Command, and he might be a lowly NCO but something like this? The fucking _cooks_ would know about something like this.

And then the gun swivels towards them and blue light starts glowing deep in the barrel and—

_“DOWN!”_

 

* * *

 

Steve feels a little sick every time he steps out on stage, no matter how often he does it. But he doesn’t get _really_ sick until they’re on a boat, heading for Europe. He’s got an ache in his bones that feels almost like his old fever pains, but it’s so mild he figures it can’t be that important. Must be all the traveling he’s done these last few months. He can’t complain, not when there are men on the line already doing more than he ever could.

He tries not to think about Bucky’s voice in his ear, late at night, saying _I feel it, in my bones, like old Mr. Jenkins can feel storms coming. It’s in my bones cuz it’s in your bones, see?_

And then they're in Italy performing for troops that don't care about him, and aren't cheered by him, and one night he wakes up with an ache in his bones so fierce it's like being back in the Vita-Ray Machine, it's like getting the serum all over again and he shoves his fist in his mouth and tries not to scream this time.

He gasps through it and tries to curl in on himself, smaller and smaller. He wonders if the serum is wearing off. Maybe it's burning out of him and he'll be left as he used to be: small, and sickly, and useless once more.

But he doesn't get smaller. He just hurts. And the pain passes, eventually.

It runs through him like a wildfire and once it's had its way, he's just as he is now. No change. That same, persistent ache deep in his bones he’s had for a few weeks now, but…

He thinks of Mattie, clawing at her soulmark, tearing at her costume.

Nervously, he reaches between his shoulders and touches his own mark. He didn’t pass out. There’s no pain, no sense of loss or absence. No change at all. So Bucky's fine. He must be.

Everybody knows that when a soulmate of yours dies, you _know._ It’s one of those not-quite-quantifiable things, but most everyone who’s ever had a soulmate that died can confirm it. Some people claim that they can tell when a soulmate dies, even if they never met them. And some people claim that it’s all a bunch of hooey, because they didn’t feel when their husband or wife died, and don’t you dare try to say that they weren’t soulmates.

Steve believes that you feel it when your soulmate dies. He believes it because his mom always said that she knew. She fainted right in the middle of her shift, the very day that Joseph Rogers died, even though he was thousands of miles away. And she told Steve that she’d felt his Aunt Lidia and Uncle Steven go too, like aftershocks from an earthquake. _It doesn’t hurt, it’s just gone,_ she’d said, when he asked. _You’ll know it if you feel it, lad. But god I hope you never do._

 

So, later that day, in a cold tent with the smell of mud in his nose and the sound of rain on the canvas over his head, he hears, as if from a great distance: “I’m sorry,” in Colonel Phillips’s gruff voice.

_He’s not dead,_ Steve thinks. _I didn’t feel it, so he’s not dead._

All he has to do is prove it.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **v - kochab: the star**

_“... So in the comics, it's actually the A. Like on the helmet. (Here’s an interesting thing about symbolism and Judaism and golems, yadda yadda yadda, but that’s not what we’re here for). Clearly Steve Rogers doesn't have an A-shaped soulmark on his forehead, but it might be elsewhere. Plenty of people have speculated that it could be circular, like the shield, or a nice patriotic red/white/blue situation. Cap himself is famously close mouthed about it. If you wanna see him get flustered and BLUSH (so cute omg) check out that TMZ interview where they actually flat out asked him about it. WHATCHA HIDING, CAP? DON'T BE SHY.”_

_smsmodkiki. "Avengers Series: Captain America." Soul Mark Speculation Blog. Last modified July 4, 2012._

 

 

 

_Steve,_ Bucky thinks, and _oh god, please let it stop,_ and _don’t let him feel this,_ and _please let me die._

“Barnes,” he says. “James Buchanan,” he says. “Sergeant,” he says. “Three two five five seven zero three eight,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Steve can feel that he is in the right place, like there are a bunch of strings around his ribs, all pulled tight and singing. He follows the feeling down, down into the factory. Deeper. The place reeks of mildew and burning, and the faint copper tang of old blood.

He comes around the corner and sees, up ahead, a small man in a suit and fedora, with a briefcase under one arm and a coat under the other.

Steve doesn’t know what the exact opposite of a soulmate is, but this is what that would feel like, he thinks. It’s like getting dropped in freezing mud. He feels it crawling all over his skin. Instant, instinctive revulsion.

He doesn’t know why, but he wants to chase this man down and _end him._ He’s halfway to doing that when the strings in his ribcage go taut and start singing. He feels like a radio that just dialed past the right station.

He stops.

He backs up.

And then he hears it.

A soft groan, barely audible.

He follows it, and the groan resolves into words, slurred and drunken sounding. “Sergeant. Three two five five s-seven…” trailing off into nonsense, and then: “Barnes.”

Steve runs.

 

* * *

 

_That’s it,_ Bucky thinks. _I’ve finally fuckin’ snapped._

Steve’s the size of a house. He’s the size of an entire apartment block. Bucky’s stumbling up the stairs behind him. The heat from the blasts below are hitting them in waves. Steve’s the size of a house, and Bucky knows it’s him, because he can feel it. Feels it stronger than he’s ever felt it before, like someone dialed their bond up to eleven. Everything in him is pointing to Steve, like Bucky’s a compass and Steve’s the north pole.

But Steve’s the size of a house.

Where’s his guy? Where’s Bucky’s little guy?

“Captain America!”

And Steve stops like that’s his damn name. Who the fuck is Captain America?

But they turn to look and that’s _him_ that’s _Schmidt,_ the guy Steve says got the serum too, and next to him, that’s—

Glasses. A hat and coat now, but Bucky can’t stop staring. The glasses, the bow tie. The way his paunchy little face sags around the mouth like it’s hot wax. Bucky’s veins feel full of hot wax. He stares. The light glints off the metal rims, the glass. _The glasses._

His hands were clammy when he checked Bucky’s pulse. _Noch nicht tot,_ he’d said.

Bucky hadn’t been so sure. He’s still not sure.

He remembers the needles, the burning not-lights that made him feel like they were roasting him alive.

But there are things he doesn't remember, and that's worse. The black holes where he _doesn’t know what they did to him_ but his head aches, it _aches, it aches._

The guy — the glasses guy, he’s watching Bucky with his mouth open, and there’s frank hunger in his eyes.

Bucky’s gonna be sick. He swallows down the burn of bile.

He can’t move. He can’t. He’s stuck, rooted to the spot with blood rushing in his ears and his hands cramped around the railing in front of him. Everything sounds very far away as he and the man with the glasses stare at each other across a lake of fire.

The man with the glasses breaks eye contact first, and time starts up again. For a moment, Bucky is lightheaded.

And then the other guy — the fella in the long black leather coat — is _pulling_ his _god damned face off._

Underneath is a red skull. It looks like his face has melted off. It looks like a soulmark, but all over his skin, everywhere, like he’s been turned inside out, so everyone can see what he _really_ is.

_That’s it,_ Bucky thinks. _I’ve finally fuckin’ snapped._

“You don’t have one of those, do you?”

 

* * *

 

They don’t get a moment alone — really alone — until the night after they free the prisoners.

Steve is just sitting down at a campfire when Bucky grabs the back of Steve’s jacket and physically hauls him to his feet, shoving him towards the treeline.

“You and me gotta have a little chat,” Bucky hisses.

Steve gulps.

Dugan snickers something about Captain America getting told off by his ma. Doesn’t stop Bucky from dragging Steve twenty feet into the woods, where they can get a scrap of privacy.

“Bucky,” Steve starts.

Bucky grabs him by the lapels and pushes him — _hard_ — against a tree. The rough bark scrapes against his soulmark through his jacket. And then Bucky’s hands are all over him. It’s not tender, it’s like how he used to check Steve brusquely over for injuries after a bad fight.

“The fuck did you do to yourself?” Bucky hisses. “Jesus Christ, pal, what the fuck—”

“I couldn’t—”

“I ask one simple fucking thing of you. Stay safe, I say. Don’t do anything stupid, I say. Fuck. Can’t you just—”

“—couldn’t do nothing, not with you out—”

“—listen to me, for once in your fucking — God. _A little,_ he says. Yeah I fucking bet it hurt _a little,_ you dumb—”

“—there in a goddamn trench somewhere. I couldn’t just sit at home waiting—”

“—palooka, you got nothing to prove, I keep telling you and telling you, you got nothing to prove to me—”

“—Bucky,” Steve cuts in sharply. He grabs Bucky’s lapels and hauls him up onto his toes and close enough that their noses are nearly touching. Bucky’s eyes go wide, the blue almost eaten up entirely by pupils. “I wasn’t just gonna go about my daily, waiting to pass out in the fucking grocery store and wake up knowing _you were dead.”_

Bucky’s bottom lip trembles. His fingers close on Steve’s biceps. He used to be able to get his fingers the whole way around. Not anymore. Not by a long shot.

“You almost died,” Steve whispers. “Fuck. I almost _lost you._ Bucky, I—”

And then Bucky’s kissing him. “Shh,” he mumbles against Steve’s mouth. He rubs his forehead against Steve’s. “Don’t matter now. I’m here, you’re here, it’s—”

And he loops an arm around Steve’s waist, reels him in until they’re pressed together all along their fronts, and slips the other hand up under Steve’s jacket, presses it flat between his shoulder blades. Steve sucks in air, all the way down to the bottom of his lungs. It’s like coming out of the Vita-Ray Machine all over again. His shoulders drop, as something settles into place inside him.

Bucky is —

Bucky is _laughing_ at him.

“Wha—” Steve feels a little drunk all of a sudden, and can’t quite work out what Bucky’s laughing about.

“They put it on your outfit, pal?” He drags nails over embroidery, and over Steve’s mark, and Steve shivers. He remembers that he’s still wearing the Cap getup under his jacket.

“They… Yeah. Kinda.”

“Kinky,” Bucky says teasingly.

Steve’s changed soulmark aches like a bruise. It feels like a lie between them. Steve can’t stand it, but now — now isn’t the time. He kisses Bucky again. “‘M not sorry I saved your life.”

Bucky scowls.

“But. I am sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. I shoulda told you before you left, but I… Didn’t think it would work. Couldn’t stand getting my own hopes up, you know?”

Bucky sighs. His fingers run feather light over the planes of Steve’s face. His cheekbones, nose, lips, eyebrows — all the things the serum _didn’t_ change. “You’re an idiot,” Bucky whispers. “I forgive you.”

Steve swallows, and hopes Bucky will still forgive him when he finds out about the changed mark on Steve’s back. Steve will just have to explain it, somehow.

 

* * *

 

Bucky doesn't get the chance to get his hands on Steve for real until they’re back in London, almost two weeks later. That’s probably for the best, because he spends the first week jumping every time he catches a glimpse of Steve out of the corner of his eye, feeling a strange ache of loss in his chest, because _where’s his guy? Where’s his little guy?_

And then Steve picks up a damn jeep.

Phillips’s Jeep gets stuck in the mud and Steve just… Just walks up, claps his hands together twice, gets a good grip on the rear bumper and _heaves,_ all those muscles bunching under his uniform shirt and head thrown back a little.

The Jeep comes loose from the mud with a loud _splurch_ and Steve drags it back to dry land, ankle deep in mud and leaving deep squelchy footprints.

Bucky closes his mouth with a snap.

Bucky never thought of himself as the sort of queer who gets dizzy over big fellas with bulging muscles but it’s _Steve._ It’s Steve, who’s always had a habit of setting himself against the world and all it’s wrongs, ready to fight. Now he looks like he could take on the world and _fucking win._

The second week’s a lot harder than the first week, that’s all.

 

At the end of it, back in London, he climbs through the window of Steve’s officer’s digs, just the way he used to climb through the window of Steve’s old bedroom back in Brooklyn. Steve’s at his little desk, and looks up with wide, startled eyes. It’s _Steve,_ it’s _his Steve,_ and Bucky maybe goes a little wild at the thought. He’s grinning. He’s _giddy._

Steve scoots back from the desk and gets to his feet. “Bu—”

The word isn’t even fully out of Steve’s mouth before Bucky is kissing him, pushing him back towards the bed. These last couple weeks, there hadn’t been time or privacy for more than stolen kisses and lingering glances. It was like being sixteen again, with no freedom from parents and siblings and teachers and neighbors.

But Steve is a Captain (sort of) and he’s Captain America (most of the time) so his room has a lock and a desk and a real bed.

“Christ, you’re so—” Bucky groans and starts tugging impatiently at Steve’s buttons.

“Wait, Bucky—”

“—fuckin’ huge. This body, _Jesus._ S’gonna take some getting used to, I tellya, so we better get started, huh?”

“Bucky, _stop,”_ Steve says, sharp and commanding.

Bucky yanks his hands back from the buttons and jumps back from Steve, shocked. He actually looks at Steve’s face properly, and registers that Steve is grimacing.

It's like ice water down his back and he thinks — maybe Steve isn't just bigger. Maybe Steve’s body isn’t the only thing that changed. Maybe Steve doesn’t _want—_

“S-Steve?” Bucky says, nameless fear crawling up his windpipe.

Steve winces hard, looks sick with regret. “Sorry, I just — I wanted to tell you before you saw.”

That’s the face Stevie makes when he’s fucked something up. Bucky narrows his eyes. “Before I saw what.”

“You’d… better sit down, maybe.”

Bucky sits. Steve sits next to him, with his shoulders hunched in and his hands twisting in his lap.

He explains.

He explains _a lot._ He explains about the machine, more than he did before. He explains about the needles and the Vita Rays and coming out and not realizing until the nurse saw and then…

“I didn’t know,” Steve says, eyes huge and earnest. “I swear I didn’t know that would happen, Buck. I didn’t know that _could_ happen. I just… I just wanted to get to where you were.”

Bucky is quiet. He’s thinking about needles, and about rays aimed at his chest, his face. He’s thinking about the feeling in his veins, like all his blood was burning. He thinks about the glasses. The bow tie. The clammy hands on him.

The Red Skull.

Steve is staring at him, worried.

“Let me see,” Bucky says.

Steve swallows and grabs the hem of his shirt. He pulls it off over his head and _holy shit Steve._ But Bucky doesn’t get much time to appreciate _all that_ , because Steve turns away from him, and hunches his shoulders in harder.

The star is still there, but it’s maybe a little bigger, Bucky thinks. It’s all filled in, and bright silvery white, like an old scar. It’s perfect, Bucky thinks. _He’s perfect._

Bucky’s hands are on it before he can think anything about it. Steve sucks in a sharp breath. Bucky does too. _Fuck._ It’s just the same, but _more._ It didn’t used to be this strong, Bucky’s pretty sure. That feeling like there’s lightning in his fingertips when he’s touching Steve. He’s gone hot under the collar, his heart pounding in his chest. It’s a sense of _rightness,_ like a key in a lock. It’s a feeling of _belonging,_ of _safe, home, good._

Steve’s head falls back, lips parting on a soft gasp. He rocks where he sits. “Oh,” he says, soft and low and gravelly.

“Feels the same?” Bucky asks. His own voice probably sounds like he’s been gargling rocks. Can’t be helped.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes.

Bucky pulls on those big broad shoulders, turns him. He swings a leg across Steve’s lap and sits down. Steve stares up at him slack-jawed and eyes glazing over. That’s fine. That’s _great._ Bucky’s got this. He tugs Steve’s arm, pushes it up under his jacket, over his white undershirt. Fuck, Steve’s hands are warm. Never used to be warm like this. Steve lays his hand over Bucky’s mark, and Bucky bites hard on his bottom lip because _oh fuck_ it’s _definitely_ gotten stronger. What’s that saying about absence and hearts?

Bucky reaches over Steve’s shoulders, sliding over muscle and skin and _oh._ Steve’s eyes slam shut when Bucky touches his mark and he’s lighting up, they both are. Lighting up under their skin, crackling with overcharge. Plug them in, you could run a damn grid off this feeling. God damn.

“Some things change, yeah, but this?” Bucky says, his voice husky. “It’s just the same.”

“Yeah,” Steve gasps.

Bucky smirks. “Only difference is you ain’t gonna have an asthma attack in the middle.”

“No,” Steve says. His eyes slit open and he grins, bright as the damn sun. “And…”

Bucky cocks his head.

There’s pink in Steve’s cheeks, the tops of his ears, crawling for his neck now. “And, uh, I can go more than once.”

Go more than…? Bucky’s eyebrows go up.

“It’s the serum,” Steve explains.

“God Bless the serum,” Bucky says fervently. “Lord give me strength.”

He slides out of Steve’s lap in a hurry, gets on his knees like he’s praying, but, well.

He doesn’t pray.

 

* * *

 

Steve falls heavily asleep after round three, and wakes up with Bucky half sprawled on top of him. Bucky’s still half-dressed, in his undershirt and boxers. Steve reaches out and brushes the spot on Bucky’s back with his knuckles, feather light. The old familiar reverberating hum of pleasure comes back —

And then he jerks violently awake because that’s _sunlight_ coming in the window and —

_“Shit!”_

Bucky comes awake in an equally panicked state. They overslept. The next five minutes are a hasty, panicked mess of Steve throwing clothes at Bucky, Bucky trying to get dressed and climb out the window all at the same time. Steve makes sure the coast is clear before stealing one last kiss and all but kicking Bucky off the sill.

He has to lie facedown on the mattress for twenty minutes, trying to will his furious blush into submission and berating himself for carelessness.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vi - pyxis: the compass**  

_“The Mate Pain Response (MPR) is a well-known phenomenon where one member of a mark-linked couple claims to feel the pain of the other member(s). MPR has been reported in 78% of mark-linked relationships with children, 62% of mark-linked marriages, 46% of mark-linked sexual relationships, and 27% of mark-linked platonic friendships._

_However, when the question of stress hormones and trauma is raised (“Has your mark-linked partner/companion/spouse been with you during a highly stressful or traumatic time or event?”) the connection becomes more pronounced. Those who have experienced a traumatic event or time with their partner have an 89% likelihood of experiencing MPR to some degree, regardless of the nature of the relationship.”_

_Kinsey, A.; Pomeroy, W.; Martin, C.; & Gebhard, P. Sexual Behavior in Soulmark-Linked Couples, Philadelphia: Saunders (1956)._

 

 

 

They find out about their soulmarks on their first mission together. They come out of the mission covered — _literally_ covered in filth, except for Bucky, who was covering them from the safety of a pine tree. Bucky wrinkles his nose all the way back to the relative safety of camp.

“Please, please, _please_ go jump in that lake,” Bucky says, once they’re back. “I’ll keep watch, but for the love of all that is holy, you _have to._ All’a you. You too, Steve.”

Steve immediately starts to tear off his filthy uniform, then stops, a sick swoop of fear in his guts. If they see his mark, they'll _know._ They must already know about Bucky's mark. Dugan will, at least — they were in the 107th together.

And then he remembers that he doesn't have to worry about that anymore. Because he and Bucky don’t _have the same soulmark anymore._ It’s similar, sure, but different enough to pass off as brotherly affection, as any other level of soulmark compatibility. He's suddenly sick with regret and relief and it's like emotional whiplash. It's like riding the psychological Cyclone. It's all over in a few seconds, and he gets back to unstrapping himself from his filthy gear. He untangles himself from his uniform and sees Dugan there, shirtless and furry like a ginger gorilla. He’s gaping.

“Holy shit,” Dugan says, pointing at Gabe's bared back, and Morita’s, and Falsworth’s, and Steve’s. “Holy shit! Sarge are you seeing this?!”

Bucky is laughing. It's the first real laugh Steve's heard from him since the night he drew Bucky's soulmark, the night before he shipped out and Steve went to Lehigh.

He’s laughing because they all have different marks, in the same exact spot, and Steve is dumbstruck. For a second, all he can hear is his ma’s gentle Irish lilt, telling him: _I think that maybe it runs in our family… It’s just that when we find our people, we_ know.

“Of fucking course we do,” Bucky is saying. “Jesus Christ. We're all as dumb as each other, ain't we?”

“Good Lord, Barnes,” says Falsworth. “Have you got one too? What is it?”

“It's a fucking _star,”_ Dugan says.

“What,” says Morita, a little nervously. “Like his?” he's pointing at Steve.

Bucky scratches his chin. “Hell no.  Mine’s prettier.”

“Says you,” Steve says, trying to swallow back his worry as he keeps peeling off his filthy clothes. Morita and Gabe are already in the water.

“Says me and Dot Hoffman,” Bucky says smugly. Steve casts him a quick look, reproachful. Bucky just winks back, the bastard.

“Well go on then, we've showed you ours,” Gabe points out.

“That's pretty queer, Jones,” Dugan says. It's big and easy sounding, coming out of his mouth. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just teasing.

But Steve feels it like a gut punch. His hackles are instantly up, and he opens his mouth to snap something mean and sharp and then… he remembers that he doesn’t have to be mean and sharp to be heard. Not anymore. He’s a _captain._ He’s _Dugan’s_ captain. _You got nothing to prove._

“Hey,” he says, very mildly. “Jones saved all our asses back there, he can do what he wants with them.”

“Like I’d want your ass, Dum Dum,” Gabe hops in, not even embarrassed.

“Excuse you, my ass is the peak of human perfection,” Dugan shoots back.

“Excuse _you,”_ Falsworth says. “I believe that the Captain there was engineered in a lab to be the peak of human perfection. So. Scientifically speaking…”

Steve goes red.

“Like Steve’s ass can hold a candle to Lili Marlene,” Bucky says. “And, Jones, for your sake and everyone else’s, I figure that at least one of us shouldn’t get caught with their pants down. I’m keeping watch, and I’m keeping my clothes on.”

And that’s it. Nothing more to it. Easy as breathing.

 

* * *

 

When they get back to base, Dugan makes some kind of dumb comment, when they’re hiking into the nearest town for a drink. Peggy’s with them. She’s a real classy dame. Bucky doesn’t quite know what to make of her yet, but no one’s ever accused her of being stupid, and Bucky ain’t gonna be the first.

She picks up on whatever dumb thing Dugan said, and she makes a questioning face. That leads to a slightly pink-faced Captain America explaining about their marks.

“They’re not _exactly_ the same,” Steve says. “But they’re in the same spot.”

“Where?” Carter asks, unabashedly curious.

Steve goes _more_ pink. Bucky tries not to think about how far down that blush goes. Steve clears his throat and reaches up and around, tapping between his own shoulder blades. “Right there.”

Bucky has what he suspects is the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Carter looking _startled._

“Oh,” she says, a little breathless. And then she laughs. “Oh, of course. That makes perfect sense.”

“Does it?” Bucky pipes up. “I mean. What are the odds, right?”

“Perhaps, but you’ve all been through the fire together,” she says. “And it takes a very particular kind of person to survive a camp like that—” Bucky thinks he does a marvelous job not flinching at that “—with enough gumption to pick up a gun and use it to effect at the end. And look at how well you all work together. It could be a real asset.”

“Could be a real pain in the ass too,” Bucky says. “Soulmates — or whatever us mooks are — feel each other’s pain, right? Not gonna be much of a unit if we all get the screaming meemies when one of us catches a bit of shrapnel or whatever.”

“I guess we’ll _all_ find out, won’t we?”

“All?” Steve says, catching Carter’s odd emphasis.

“Didn’t you guess?”

“No,” Dugan says, with dawning comprehension. “No way!”

Carter stops to give him a withering look, and they all stop with her. She looks around at the dusty road ahead and behind. It’s empty. She undoes the belt on her jacket, pops open the buttons and throws the thing at Steve. Steve fumbles to catch it without dropping it while Carter yanks at her tie in sharp jerks, exactly the way Bucky’s pa used to after a long day.

“Oh holy—” Gabe looks a little like he wants to make a break for it, but then he has to catch Peggy’s tie.

Bucky watches it happening like a trainwreck in slow motion. Carter unbuttons enough blouse to hike it up and slip it off her shoulders, turning away from them so they can see—

Her mark. Because of course. _Of course._ It takes a very particular kind of person to help an idiot like Steve disobey direct orders and fly into enemy territory. It takes a very particular kind of _soul._ The mark is framed by the straps of her slip and two old bullet scars. It’s not raised like his or Steve’s, it’s flat like a freckle, but darker, almost black, and probably two or three inches across. Eight points of alternating lengths radiate out from the center of it. Not like Monty’s bold red asterisk — this is more delicate, more precise. Like a star.

“It’s a compass rose,” Peggy tells them. “Runs in the family. My brother had the very same mark, you know, although his was over his heart.” And then she looks over her shoulder and gives them a smug, angry little smirk. It’s not flirtatious, though it maybe should be. Instead it’s a challenge.

_Look,_ she says, without saying a word. _I’m one of you. Try to tell me otherwise. I dare you._

It reminds him of Steve, and suddenly Bucky’s guts clench. Because Steve’s star is different now. Steve’s changed, he’s grown — literally. And Bucky hasn’t. If anything, there’s less of him now than there was before. There’s whole swathes of the kid he used to be that are just _gone._ There are pieces of the guy that Steve fell in love with that are missing, and he doesn’t think they're coming back.

Bucky looks sidelong at Steve and sees him swallow. His eyes are wide and doe-like, fixed on the mark on Carter’s back and—

Bucky’s not at all used to seeing that particular look pointed away from him. He might have expected to feel jealousy, to feel possessive or filled with anger. Steve is _his,_ after all.

But instead he just feels hollow inside.

He remembers feeling twelve feet tall when Steve looked at him like that. He remembers holding Steve close at nights and thinking that no matter what, they’d always have each other. He remembers thinking that he’d find a way to give Steve the world.

And if he’s honest, despite all the dates Bucky set him up on, it never once occurred to him that maybe Steve could do better. Not really.

Bucky walks away before Carter finishes doing up her buttons.

 

* * *

 

Steve finally corners Bucky in their little tent, three days later. There’s just been a lot going on: moving and getting orders and moving again. And they have to be careful, quiet. Steve doesn’t think the Howlies would say anything about it, if they knew, but maybe folk didn’t like having it waved in front of them, right? And anyway, Dugan gets chatty and a little stupid when he’s drunk. No one wants to see Captain America blue carded. Best not to risk it.

“What’s going on with you?” Steve whispers, once it’s just the two of them.

“Whaddya mean?” Bucky says, affecting nonchalance. He’s taking off his boots, setting them carefully beside his bedroll, next to his gun. If something happens in the night, he can get the gun in his hands and his feet in the boots in one smooth motion. Steve’s seen him do it.

“I mean ever since we told Carter about the Howlies’ soulmarks, you’ve been… weird.”

Bucky makes a skeptical face. “No I haven’t.” He scoffs.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “You _have.”_

The already complicated lines of Bucky’s mouth twist further. “I don’t mean to be. I just. Got thinking.”

“Well don’t hurt yourself, pal,” Steve says, to cover the fact that the statement makes his skin crawl with something nameless. Nameless, but bad.

“I’m thinking,” Bucky shoots Steve a glare, “next time we’re in London, you oughta take that Agent Carter dancing, pal.”

Steve drops his handgun and holster, which he’d been just about to set within easy reach.

“Steve,” Bucky says reproachfully. “Christ, you’re gonna blow your nuts off one of these days if you don’t—”

“No,” Steve says. His mind has gone terrifyingly blank.

“No, you’re not gonna blow your nuts off? Well I hope not, pal, but I—”

_“No,”_ Steve says, again, a little too loudly. “Til the end of the line, you said.”

“Shh,” Bucky hisses.

“You _said,”_ Steve hisses back. “It wouldn’t matter if she had your name written on her skin in neon lights. _You said.”_ The panic feels like asthma in his chest all over again. “You didn’t care, you said it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t be me, you said—” _You promised,_ he means, but it occurs to him that they hadn’t. They’d never made any promises. They’d never needed to.

“That was different,” Bucky says.

The words strike like three bullets, center mass. _That. Was. Different._ He can only stare at Buck. Speechless.

Bucky is looking down at his hands. _“We_ were different.”

That’s even _worse._ It’s worse because it’s _true._ Bucky’s _different_ now: grimmer and colder and quieter. He doesn’t smile anymore unless he’s smiling at Steve, and he doesn’t do that very often at all. And Steve’s different, right down to his bones. Right down to his soul.

The spot between his shoulder blades _burns._

“It’s the same,” and it’s a broken whisper now. “It’s just the same.”

“It ain’t.” Bucky swallows thickly and looks up. “I mean it, Steve. You got a chance now. You could have anyone you want. I mean. Any one of the Howlies is as compatible as me, right? And Carter… You’d be good for each other. She’d be good for you.”

Steve has never been more hurt. This hurts worse than his ma dying. This hurts worse than getting 4F after 4F. This hurts worse than—

“Shit,” Bucky mutters, reading it off his face. “Shit. Steve, it ain’t that I don’t want you. God, I’ve never wanted anything more. I didn’t mean it like—”

His fingers brush Steve’s arm and Steve flinches back, hard. “How didja mean it, then?”

“I mean it ain’t about me, it’s about you. _You’re free now,”_ Bucky whispers. He’s leaning in, fingers twitching, but holding back from actual touch. “You got a chance to turn it all around. Best I’m ever gonna be able to offer you is a lifetime of nasty rumors, dragging your name through the mud. No family, no real home…”

_“You’re_ my family,” Steve says. _“You’re_ my home.”

Bucky’s chin trembles. “I can’t give you what you deserve. I can never—”

“Fuck what I deserve. I don’t want it. I want _you,”_ Steve says, the whispered words harsh. “Even though you’re a _complete asshole,_ Jesus Mary and Joseph, Bucky if you ever—”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, at once. “Fuck, I’m so—”

“—Ever say anything like that to me again, _ever,_ I will—” he struggles for something truly awful to do to Bucky. “I don’t know, but it’ll be _bad.”_

“So fucking sorry, Stevie,” Bucky says.

“You fucking _will be,”_ Steve says. “Hell. _Any of the Howlies is as compatible as you?_ You even _think_ something that fucking stupid and I’ll tell everyone you want to move to Jersey. I’ll tell them you’re a Yankees fan. I’ll—”

“Alright, alright!” Bucky lifts his hands in surrender. “Uncle, alright? I’m calling uncle. You got me.”

“Have I?” Steve challenges, glaring.

Bucky’s hands drop, his face makes a weird, resigned expression. “Yeah, pal. Yeah. You got me. It’s like I said. End of the line, right?”

“Right. Fuck.” Only then does Steve dash away the tears he didn’t realize were streaming down his face. He has no idea when they even started. “You’d better touch me and I mean right fucking now, because if you don’t I’m gonna—”

Bucky is hugging him before he even finishes the sentence, and he clenches his fist in Steve’s shirt, pressing tight against the soulmark — _their soulmark, it’s changed but that changes nothing, it’s just the same, it’s just the same._

Steve feels like he can breathe again.

 

* * *

 

The war is awful, of course. There are gunshots and explosions and screaming and every loud terrible sound the world can imagine. There are bodies with no souls in them anymore, piled like kindling and left to rot. There is the eerie silent melancholy of ruined towns, and all of them remind him of home, and make him wonder what Brooklyn will look like if the Nazis get their hands on it. There is the feeling of mud under his boots, and the endless irritation of wet socks. There is the reek of cordite, and blood, and his own fucking _stink_ because there’s nowhere to _take a fucking bath._ There’s the heart-stopping terror of a battle, of knowing that one wrong step could mean his life, could mean their lives, could mean _Steve’s life._ And when they manage to scramble out of it on top and still alive (still miraculously alive, usually thanks to Steve’s crazy goddamn bullshit) there’s the sick down swoop as adrenaline drains away, the ache of exhaustion that trails in its wake.

But worst of all is the _boredom._ The god damn _waiting._ That’s terrible, probably. Because it’s terrible to loathe the absence of war more than the war itself, but no one ever accused Bucky of being a saint.

Bad as Bucky hates the waiting, though, Steve is a thousand times worse. Because, yeah, sure the war is awful, but at least when they’re in the war, they’re _doing something,_ and Steve cannot bear to be _not_ doing _something._

They’re waiting for transport. They’re just. Waiting. Dugan and Monty and Morita and Gabe are playing cards. Steve’s got his shield on his lap, and they’re _waiting,_ they’re just _waiting,_ for a fucking _truck._ They should be halfway to Paris by now, but the _truck isn’t here,_ and the timetable is going to be so fucked if they don’t—

Bucky can actually feel the irritation boiling off Steve like steam. He can feel it in his own chest, too: a tight, angry knot of rage that doesn’t quite belong to him. He’s been getting more and more through the bond, ever since Azzano. Makes sense. Steve says the serum amps up everything inside, and the bond’s inside, ain’t it? Logical.

Bucky tries real hard not to think about why _Steve’s_ serum would be affecting _him._

Buck drops his pack next to Steve. Steve looks up, and some of the angry buzz in his head clears. Bucky’s been nosing around the camp for solid intel and he’s finally got it.

“Three more hours, then for sure,” Bucky says. The boys groan loudly from where they’re still playing cards.

Steve makes a sound of endless frustration. Makes him sound like an engine about to take off. Bucky reaches out absently and smacks him upside the head. “You can’t make the roads less muddy, pal.” Bucky pulls out Betsy and the cloth he uses when he’s cleaning her. _His soulmate,_ Dugan had called her, and Buck had dutifully painted the outline of a white star on the stock.

Steve is visibly brainstorming ways that he could do exactly that. What a dope. He’s probably plotting to carry each Jeep and truck by hand, as if that would actually speed things up.

Bucky sits down with Betsy and starts taking her apart, the familiar click-click-click of pieces unlocking and then the almost inaudible squeak-squeak of a rag, the scent of gun oil. He leans back, and Steve leans back. Through the armor and the jacket, their soulmarks line up. It’s easier to do, now. Bucky always used to have to slouch down because of their height difference, while Steve sat up hard, trying to straighten his crooked spine tall enough to tip his head back onto Bucky’s shoulder.

Steve sighs, and Bucky feels Steve’s big shoulders relax.

It didn’t used to be like this either. Used to be, when Bucky pressed up against his soulmark like this, Steve would get all wound up, his skinny little body feeling too much, building and building slowly, ramping up for something, until he had to _move_. Now it seems the reverse is true, somehow. Bucky touches Steve, and something just — goes out of him.

Now it’s Bucky who can only seem to hold position for a little while before he needs to either kiss Steve or take a walk (depending on who’s watching.) Each touch coils tighter and tighter inside him, urging him to do… something.

He is _painfully_ aware that they’ve changed roles in so many other ways too. Steve gets it in a way he didn’t before. He’d confessed as much after the first month as Captain America. He sees now, how exhausting it had to be for Bucky to be _Bucky_ all the time. James Buchanan Barnes: Brooklyn’s Finest. Now Steve has to be _Captain America_ all the time, and in those moments where he can just be _Steve,_ it’s such a damn weight off his shoulders.

And for Bucky, well. The whole first week after they got him out of the factory, everyone was looking at him sideways, asking _you alright, Sarge?_ and _have you been to the medical tent?_ and _you wanna ride in the truck, soldier?_ Bucky had started to snap and snarl like a wild dog every time someone so much as patted his shoulder in sympathy. Well, everyone but Steve, at any rate.

Steve leans back a little harder, pressing into Bucky, just for a moment, like a click over the line, a beat of Morse. _You there?_

Bucky leans back just the same, a subtle shift of his weight. _I’m here._

 

* * *

 

They’re in the Hürtgen Forest — Allied Command is trying to turn around a failing offensive that never should've been attempted in the first place. It's not going to work — none of it. Not the offensive and not the attempt to fix it. Steve could've told them that. He did tell them, in fact. Vociferously. Much good it did them.

So now here they are, Steve and Bucky and the rest of the Commandos, in woodland so dense that all artillery and air support is meaningless. Steve’s been trying to keep track of the enemy’s troop movements in his head, but every damn tree looks exactly like the other. Why couldn’t they be doing this in a city with a grid layout? _The Krauts are at 7th and Flatbush!_ It’d all be so much easier.

He checks his map and compass as best he can in this damn foxhole with a fucking tree root poking him in the ass. They need to be moving east, so they can rendezvous with the rest of the unit and keep the line going forward. Steve’s pretty sure there are some scouts between here and there, but there’s nothing for it. He checks the coordinates one last time, then folds the map away in his belt, along with the compass.

“We moving?” Bucky says. He’s got Betsy cradled in his arms, absently rubbing his thumb over the white star outlined on her stock. It’s been quiet out there for a while, but that’s hardly a guarantee of anything.

“I’ll clear it,” Steve says. “Cover me.”

Bucky makes a tsking sound. “You should let Dugan clear it.”

Dugan kicks him. “Hey fuck you,” he says cheerfully. Gabe snorts a little, from his side of the foxhole, while Morita and Monty continue dutifully getting their packs ready and Dernier does something that probably won’t result in all of them dying in a fiery explosion.

_“I’ll_ clear it,” Steve insists. Steve may be their captain, but Dugan doesn’t have a bulletproof shield.

Bucky shakes his head, but shifts his grip on the rifle, ready to pop up and provide cover fire.

Steve goes cautiously over the top, and when no one immediately starts shooting at him, he moves forward, listening hard. Everything is deadened by pine needles and old wood, but if he can’t hear anything, it’s probably okay. Probably.

Steve is just turning to motion the boys forward when he hears a series of cracks, like branches snapping, but much louder. And then there’s the _zing_ of bullets whipping past, thumping into dirt and deadwood. He's on the ground almost before he hears it. Everyone is shouting, barely audible over the ringing in his ears. Bullets are still hitting the dirt around him. He pulls the shield in close and rolls himself back into the foxhole, landing hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. _Shit, that was close._

And then he looks down at himself.

_Oh,_ he has a moment to think, as he watches red seep into the white and blue. _That hit me._

And then, the pain.

Like a gut punch, and he’s just trying to breathe, to _keep breathing._ It feels like pneumonia coming on fast: lungs filling with fluid.

Time flickers, like the movie reel of his life is missing some frames —

 

And then Bucky's face, all twisted in pain — _Bucky are you okay?_ He can’t make the words, he can’t find the _air —_

 

And then, somewhere above him: “Dugan, get his legs” and “Yeah, I fucking know it hurts, God.”

It does hurt. It _hurts._

 

And then: he is so cold, except where there are two hands holding his face. The hands are hot and sticky, and everything smells like blood.

 

And then there are someone’s _fingers_ in his _side_ , pulling his _ribs apart,_ digging into his _flesh,_ his raw nerves, and he _screams_ and Bucky is _howling_ —

 

And then it’s quiet.

 

“...pulling us off the line, just like you wanted, Cap. Not that I don’t love seeing you win an argument with the brass, I absolutely do, sir, but not like this, you know? Not like this.”

Someone is talking.

“And hey, next time you wanna take a bullet for us, maybe just take the one?”

Steve tries to open his eyes. The light is very bright and he winces away from it.

“Cap?”

“Unh,” is Steve’s well-considered reply. “Buck?”

“No, sir. It’s Jones.”

Steve squints open one eye. Gabe’s smile is a little wobbly. “Wha’ happened?”

“You got… hit. The bullets nicked some. Stuff.” Gabe waves a hand, vaguely indicating his abdomen. Steve registers that his whole middle seems to be heavily padded with gauze. Gabe swallows thickly, clears his throat. “But they got ‘em out. We’re just on the watch for infection, but they think you’ll be fine.”

Steve tries to open his other eye, and feels queasy. “Where’s Buck?”

“He’s fine, sir,” Gabe says, but his inflection is… off.

“Where’s Bucky?” Steve says, more sharply.

“He’s sleeping, he’s right over there,” Gabe says, jerking his chin towards the opposite side of Steve’s bed.

Steve laboriously turns his head and sees that the cot next to his houses a sprawl of limbs and a riot of messy hair. It’s unmistakably Bucky, even with his face turned away and every muscle gone lax. Steve breathes out. “S’ he okay?”

“Yeah, they…”

Something about Gabe’s voice makes Steve turn his head back.

Gabe gives a thin, toothless smile. “They gave him a sedative.”

“What?”

“He was in a lot of pain, Cap.”

“Why?” Steve can hear, as though from a distance, his own voice. He sounds like he’s about twelve. He sounds like he’s about to cry.

“Because _you_ were in a lot of pain. Jesus, we could all feel it. He just got it worse than the rest of us.”

_Soul bond,_ Steve thinks. “Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t apologize,” Gabe says. “Just, y’know. Don’t get shot again. Please. Uh, sir.”

“‘Kay,” Steve says slowly, feeling like he’s speaking the words through layers and layers of cotton wool.

 

* * *

 

It’s less than a week before Steve’s up again, and the brass is getting ready to put him back on the board. Steve’s sitting up, still in his hospital bed, which is shrouded on all sides with curtains. They’ve downgraded his bandages and his wounds have mostly closed up.

“Five fucking days,” Bucky says. He’s at Steve’s side. Hasn’t left Steve’s side since they both woke up. Because Steve still looks like he got run over by a fucking _tank_ so Bucky feels justified in being a little cranky about it.

“I’ll take it easy in the truck,” Steve says. Even his _smile_ looks tired.

“Ain’t nothing about you easy,” Bucky complains. “You ain’t taken a thing easy in your goddamn life.”

“I’ll try. For you.”

Bucky sighs heavily. He glances at his watch, lying out on the table. They’ve got time before anyone will come looking for them. He glances at the white fabric shrouding them on all sides, like when they were kids and made a pillow fort of sheets and blankets. He pauses and tips his head, listening. Someone outside the shelter of their curtains coughs, but it’s mostly snoring out there. They should be fine, as long as they keep quiet.

Steve quirks an eyebrow, like he knows what Bucky’s going to go for here, but _surprise, asshole._

Bucky doesn’t move in for a kiss, or swing a leg over his lap, or even push him down onto the bed so he can lie down beside him. Instead, he shifts off his chair, and slips in behind Steve. Steve starts to twist around, but then Bucky presses a quick kiss to the white mark between Steve’s shoulder blades.

It’s soft, and chaste, and close mouthed, but Steve isn’t wearing a shirt, and Bucky feels it like a bolt of lightning, right to the core of him. He knows Steve does too, by the way Steve lets out a soft wheeze and then tips his head back, mouth open wide so his panting isn’t so loud.

Honestly, how could Steve think Bucky would waste this chance? He hasn’t seen Steve shirtless in the new body since that first mission. They haven’t been naked at the same time since they left _Brooklyn._ The last thing you want in a war zone is to be caught with your pants down, and the scrutiny around Steve makes it hard to get him alone long enough to do more than shove their hands down each other’s pants.

Bucky presses his forehead against the mark, hard, and swears he can feel it tingling in his scalp, down his spine, down to where his mark is, where it burns. He presses a little harder, feels where the smooth, raised mark gives way to the rest of Steve’s skin. He’s warm: all of him warm and breathing and _alive._ Steve shudders and lets out a shaky breath.

Bucky thinks about telling him.

He chickens out.

He tells him something else instead.

“I felt it,” Bucky says, so quietly that he ain’t sure Steve can hear him.

Steve goes so quiet and still that Bucky _knows_ he heard. He’s not a complete idiot, so he must already know but…

Bucky’s arms snake up under Steve’s. His hands gently hook over Steve’s shoulders, to hold him in place. To keep him _here_. “The bullets. I felt ‘em. And when the doctors were digging them out. I felt that. Almost passed out from it, Jesus.”

He doesn’t remember a whole lot, but he remembers that. He remembers howling with it. Steve’s pain under his skin, screaming it out the way Steve couldn’t because he was unconscious, because he didn’t have the air to do anything more than keep breathing.

He remembers the people in the medical tent staring at him — their suspicious eyes. The Howlies had been there, and Bucky is still so fucking grateful to them. They came barging in to get up in the doctors’ faces and say things like “hurts us too” and “they grew up together” and “practically brothers” and “of course he fucking feels it.”

He’d been certain, after, that they’d kick him out, that they’d blue-card him for sure this time, and the thought of being separated from Steve still makes his chest clench with panic. The Howlies know — they _must_ know, by now. And if _they_ know, surely Carter knows. Probably Phillips too. Bucky damn near went crazy waiting for the brass to send him off, but no one’s said a fucking thing about it. Someone must be covering for them, because Steve is too important, maybe, or—

Steve’s hands come up to cover Bucky’s, and Bucky realizes that his grip on Steve has gone tight, almost white-knuckled.

He squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on _this;_ the solidity of Steve, the presence, the _warmth_ of him. He’s here. He’s okay. If Bucky doesn’t open his eyes he won’t see the bandages — the tender places where Steve’s body is still knitting itself back together.

“I’m sorry,” Steve breathes.

“Don’t do it again,” Bucky whispers.

 

* * *

 

They stay like that until they hear the nurse coming to make her rounds. Normally, Bucky is more careful than this, but it's like he can't help himself, can't stand to let Steve out of touching range. Steve thinks back to when he was on the star spangled circuit, when Bucky was being _tortured._ Steve had ached too, without knowing why. It would've been so much worse if Bucky had been there in front of him. And he hadn't been at all keen on letting Bucky out of his sight, after. So Steve understands. He gets it.

 

Except he doesn’t really get it, not _really._ Not until the train.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vii - alphard: the solitary**  

_“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you–especially since I know now our marks are such a matched set: it is as if I had a string knotted to the ribs beneath my mark, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated beneath the corresponding mark on your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”_

_Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1999._

 

 

 

He’s watching Bucky fall, can’t look away from Bucky’s face as it falls away, away, away.

He feels weightless because Bucky feels weightless. He feels numb because Bucky feels numb. Even when he loses sight of Bucky he can still feel Bucky falling and falling and falling—

He feels the impact from the inside out; bones shattering, the shock, and his left arm going so numb with agony that he loses his own grip, his gloved fingers slipping from the bar and someone screaming _Cap!_ but all Steve can think is:

_Thank God._

And then he’s falling too. He barely feels the lurch of someone snagging the straps of the shield holster on his back, hauling him back from the brink.

The pain is so intense that he blacks out.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

But he wakes up, only moments later.

He wakes up on the rattling floor of the train and it’s the _worst thing that’s ever happened to him._

Gabe’s face is hanging over him, all concern, but all Steve can hear is the howling wind, all he can feel is the pain — _Bucky’s_ pain. The ache is centered between his shoulder blades, and he bucks up like a landed fish, twisting and clawing at his back because _it feels like he’s being stabbed, over and over and over, and—_

They told him it didn't hurt; he feels so betrayed, so _lied_ to. This hurts like nothing he's ever experienced.

But then, the feeling starts to fade, and oh god, that's somehow _worse._ The crushing pressure on him lightens, and lifts away. The howling flickers in and out, interspersed with panting gasps as the pain is replaced with a tingling numbness. It spreads through him like shock, soaking into his bones. He can feel it: feel his life draining away. _Bucky’s_ life draining away.

_It doesn’t hurt, it’s just gone,_ his ma had said. _You’ll know it if you feel it, lad. But god I hope you never do._

He pants, and stares in blank, mute horror at the filthy floor of the train, at Gabe’s knees where he’s crouched there next to Steve. Distantly, he can hear Gabe calling to him, can feel Gabe checking him over for injury. But it all might as well be happening to someone else, because Steve is trying to cling to that fading sense of connection. His hands are twisted back behind him, awkwardly pressing at his soulmark, trying to get the feeling _back._ It just feels chilled and numb.

The pain is gone, but so is the warmth. Steve feels like his lips must be turning blue. He can’t feel his left arm at all.

This is dying, he thinks. This is what death feels like.

And then there’s nothing.

“Oh God,” Steve breathes.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

Later, in the plane, it’s all such a fucking relief.  Peggy’s trying to talk him into staying, but he can hear that she knows it’s a lost cause. She’s just trying to give him some comfort. He doesn’t need comfort. His eyes are already fixed on the white horizon. He’s already planning, in his head, what he’ll say.

_Heya, Buck. Sorry I’m late._

At the last second, he closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

He opens his eyes and everything is wrong.

It’s not just the sheets and the smells and the sounds and the radio, that all barely registers.

It’s the numb, empty space inside him, where Bucky used to be. It’s not a _hole,_ that’s too simplistic. It’s a _hollowing._ He feels like a bombed-out building — it used to be warm and full of light, but now it’s just a facade. The furniture, the floors, the roof, even the windows are all gone, burned away. It’s not a house anymore, it’s certainly not a _home._ And once the fire burns to coals and the coals go cold there isn’t even any warmth. Just four blackened walls with holes for the wind to blow through.

Wherever Steve is, Bucky isn’t.

He blinks at the ceiling and listens to the wrong baseball game and breathes in the wrong-smelling air and feels the wrong-feeling sheets under his hands and wonders if this is hell.

It isn’t.

 

They make him stay in a SHIELD facility and get twice daily medical checkups for a solid week. At the third checkup he notices the doctor frowning at the little machine that reads his temperature, instead of the dozen other readings he also frowns at. Steve doesn't know why he frowns at _those_ readings, but the _temperature_ thing…

Finally Steve thinks to say: “I run hot.”

“We know,” the doctor says. “That’s the thing. You don’t. You’re right at 97.4º, which is on the low end of normal.”

“Oh,” Steve says, without much interest. He supposes that could be a practical explanation for why he feels cold all the time.

Except he knows it’s not a _real_ chill, it’s a psychosomatic one.

The doctor is frowning at him now. Steve can’t remember the guy’s name.

“How about that,” Steve adds, with no inflection at all.

“How do you feel?” the doctor asks.

“Colder,” he says.

 

“How are you feeling?” A different kind of doctor asks.

“You really gonna fucking ask me that?” he marvels.

Coming out of the ice is the exact inverse of coming out of Stark's Vita Ray machine. He looks the same, on the outside, but everything inside is different. Everyone can _see_ that he's just fine, but inside he's fragile, in a way he never used to be.

When he was a kid, it was like Bucky was the only one who could see how strong Steve really was. And now that he's huge, there's no one who can see how fragile he really is.

“How do you feel?” The doctors keep asking. “How are you feeling?” But no one ever seems to hear him — or at least, they don’t hear what he means. He says he’s been better, he says he’s not doing so hot, he says he’s tired. He means he feels like he’s already dead, he wishes they’d left him in the ice, couldn’t they just let him _rest?_

Eventually, he gives up and goes back to the old standby. It's what they all really want to hear:

“Fine,” he says. “I'm fine.”

 

Eventually, the doctors decide it’s probably okay, and they send him out into the world. Alone.

He can do it, he thinks. He can get by on his own.

 

It’s not until after the Battle of Manhattan that he actually starts to think it might be true. By then he’s got a team, and he’s back in the fight, and he’s got a place in the world. They’re no Howling Commandos, and Stark’s certainly no Bucky, but it’s a foothold. It’s a place to stand.

That’s when he gets the letter from the National Portrait Gallery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our humble offering to the 2018 Stucky AU Bang
> 
> A thousand thanks to WhiskerstheMouse for beta reading (and catching all my dropped punctuation) and Verbalatte for beta reading in addition to the ART! (u r a wonderful angst enabler)
> 
> Updates on Sundays :)


	2. apastron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the worst of Steve's depression and self-destructive tendencies, so be kind to yourselves, my darlings.

 

 

## apastron

n. The point of greatest separation between two stars, especially in a binary system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

###  **i - cor hydrae: heart of the hydra**

_“Prep Instructions, Step 4: All identifying marks (fingerprints, birthmarks, soulmarks, etc) are to be removed, following the procedure laid out in fig 14b.”_

_Lukin, Aleksander. Asset Operation and Field Manual. 1956._

 

 

 

The Asset has no soulmark, as far as it is aware. Soulmarks are for the living, after all. It has been given an Arm, and that Arm has a mark, and that mark is a Star, and this seems correct. This seems like the correct mark for the Asset to have.

 _When they found him they needed a way to identify him,_ someone said once. _Red Star, The American, The Asset. No names, obviously._ And then they laughed.

Part of the procedure for activating the Asset is to burn off the fingerprints of the flesh hand. For this they use acid — _like John Dillinger,_ the Asset thinks, without fully recalling who that is. _Guess I’m a real mobster now._

They use an icy cold brand to remove something between the Asset’s shoulders. _We tried other things, but ice works best,_ they say. _Like taking off a mole._ They are careful not to touch the Asset with their hands when they do that. There is a note in the manual about touching the Asset’s back.

The fingertips of the flesh hand come back fastest: shiny and pink and smooth. And then, gradually, over the course of days, over the course of the mission, the fingerprints come back. The Asset presumes that whatever is between the shoulder blades comes back too, but that spot is always numb. He can't feel anything there. But it must come back whole and unscarred. The only scars that stay on the Asset’s skin are those where the Arm joins the body. Aside from that, the Asset's body reasserts itself. Always.

And yet, still they attempt to burn the skin on the fingertips and the back. It seems a futile procedure. The Asset is given no explanation for why this is part of the activation process. The Asset does not require explanations.

For example: no one has ever satisfactorily explained why the Asset loses all concentration — eyes glazing over, head nodding along — when certain strains of music play. Instead, they supply earplugs for use when needed. No one has ever satisfactorily explained why the Asset is not permitted to chew on things. _You and your oral fixation,_ someone said, once upon a time. Instead, they provide a muzzle which doubles as a mask.

And no one has ever satisfactorily explained why the Asset invariably lashes out if anyone touches the spot between the flesh shoulder and the metal one. Instead, they make a note in the Asset’s file and bury the corpses of those stupid enough to ignore this simple instruction.

_Do not touch the Asset’s back._

 

 

 

 

 

###  **ii - alrakis: the dancer**

_“‘Respect was invented to cover the empty place where a soulmark should be. We are not soulmates, and it would be better and more honest to say so.’”_

_Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980_

 

 

 

Steve feels genuinely tired for the first time since he came out of the ice. Punching your way through a few dozen space aliens will do that to a fella, he figures. The…. _shawarma_ is pretty good, but even Stark is quiet, so Steve figures he’s not the only one already thinking about how well he’s going to sleep tonight.

He lifts his eyes from the red plastic basket in front of him and looks at the people around him. His team, now, he supposes. He thinks of the Howlies with a pang. He hasn’t been able to work up the courage to talk to Peggy, or even consider reaching out to… who? Their kids? The grandkids? Bucky’s nieces and nephews? The thought of even trying to fills him with a sick, twisting dread.

That’s the past, he reminds himself. This is his present: these people around him. The Avengers. His team. Thor with his mean swing and his sad eyes. Bruce, who had met him on the Helicarrier with a shy smile, and the Hulk, whose smile had been more in the realm of predatory. Clint, staring with dead eyes and exhaustion in every line of his too-mortal body. Natasha and her secrets.

And Stark — arguing with Stark had been a hell of a thing, almost made Steve feel alive again. That was really something, made him perk up his head and remember that he wasn’t just a dancing monkey anymore. Stark’s arrogance and defiance, irritating as it was, had reminded Steve that he wasn’t actually a good soldier, he never had been.

But they aren’t soulmates. Steve would know if they were.

Wouldn’t he? Even through the heavy weight of numbness pressing in from all sides like he’s still in the ice, surely he’d feel if he had any kind of connection to these yahoos. Unless that part of him didn’t make it. Maybe that part actually did get blackened and frostbitten. Maybe it’s gone forever.

Steve picks at his shawarma, appetite gone.

 

After Manhattan, Steve joins SHIELD.

He figures he might as well. It's a way to pass the time.

He is immediately partnered with Natasha. They're both Avengers, and Steve actually listens to her in a way he never listens to any of the STRIKE guys. Steve recognizes that she's probably his handler, but he doesn't mind.

He finds, as time goes on and he thaws out some more, that he feels _comfortable_ around Nat, in a way that he had previously only associated with Peggy and the Commandos. It's not the same, of course, but nothing is. Even visiting Peggy (once he finally works up the courage to do so) feels like a hollow echo of what they used to have, but it had all felt like that, even before the Valkyrie.

Nothing felt right, after Bucky fell.  Nothing felt _real._ And that had only gotten worse when he woke up in this nightmare of a future where there’s no home to go back to, no Bucky to share it with. Steve feels like an unmoored buoy, bobbing around in a storm, unable to simply give in and sink, but unable to stay in place. Nat is a welcome beach to wash up on, occasionally.

Anyway. He hasn’t seen Natasha's soulmark yet, but he figures he knows, more or less.

He doesn’t. And, unsurprisingly (given that it’s Nat), it takes ages for him to figure it out.

 

One day, after an intense training session, she peels off her gear, stripping down to a tank top and leggings, and Steve sees that there’s a mark on her left bicep — an arrow, just like Hawkeye’s.

“Oh,” he says, without meaning to, brow furrowing.

Nat looks at him, looks to her arm, and smirks. “Not what you think, Rogers.” She taps the mark. “Just a tattoo.”

“Oh?” he says, more confused than ever.

“It’s kind of an open secret that Clint and I have matching marks, but…” she shrugs. “Misdirection. We’re spies. Assassins. It’s a dangerous game. We cut a deal with each other, years ago,” she says. “If someone decides to come after me, after the people I love, they’ll go for him first.”

“And they’ll end up with more than they bargained for,” Steve says, getting it. Clint can take care of himself, despite his eccentricities. And of course he would throw himself in front of a literal bullet for Nat. Clint is an idiot like that. “That’s smart, actually.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. Kinda backfired though,” she says with a grimace.

Steve lifts a brow. “Because you care about him?”

She sighs heavily. “Against my better judgment.”

Steve wants to ask what her mark really is, but of course he doesn’t. It’s rude. She turns her back and he sees that the space between her shoulders is just smooth pale skin. Blank.

 

It doesn’t occur to him until he’s walking up to his apartment, but it must be the other way around. Because really, who’s going to try going after _the Black Widow’s_ loved ones? But Clint is always getting himself in trouble with all the wrong people, if his stories are to be believed.

And Natasha wouldn’t just take a bullet for Clint: she’d catch the fucking bullet and somehow throw it back.

 

In the year or so they work together, after New York, he sees her transform countless times. She’s been a redhead, a brunette — and memorably, blue-haired. She’s been a dancer, a teacher, a high schooler once, an administrative assistant several times. Every disguise comes with a fake soulmark, even if it isn’t likely to be seen. He’s seen her paint over the arrow tattoo on her arm, and apply a new temporary tattoo over it. He’s seen her carefully apply a scar-like fake soulmark in the shape of a cloud just under her collarbone. He’s seen her painting one shaped like a bird under her ear. And once, in a pinch, she’d taken a brown sharpie to her face and scribbled a fake soulmark across her cheekbone.

He still has no idea what her real mark is.

 

The day he finds out is just like any other day: they’ve gotten out of another scrape, saved another mark from an unfortunate demise. They’re the last ones out of the office, both of them too hard working, with too little social life. Nat’s making some quip about how this is the thanks she gets, and Steve says “You did good work today,” and reaches across and claps her on the back, right between the shoulder blades, and—

It’s Steve’s fault, really. The normal thing would be to clap someone on the shoulder, or hug them maybe, or sling an arm all the way across and squeeze a little, like Bucky had, sometimes. But Steve was so used to being with the Howlies, and Peggy, and Bucky, that he almost always pats his hand flat, right between the shoulder blades. It’s habit. And he hasn’t quite broken it.

The shiver that runs up his arm isn’t quite as strong as when he first touched Bucky like that, but it is undeniable, and Nat gasps out loud, which he’s never heard before.

He yanks his hand back, feeling scalded. Nat staggers forward like he shoved her, hard. She braces her hands on her knees, but then she crumples forward more, going down to the floor.

“Nat?” he says, panicked beyond all reason. “Oh my god, Nat, are you okay?”

Her shoulders are shaking, and he crouches down beside her, hovering a foot away, not wanting to touch without her permission, in case he hurts her again.

“Holy shit,” she gasps, and collapses sideways a little, until she’s sitting on the floor, her legs sprawled out to one side.

“Jesus, Nat—”

She’s _crying,_ tears streaming down her face. He’s never seen her like this, not  since he found her after the Hulk almost killed her, after her fight with Hawkeye.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t—” She looks terrified. “It’s just—” She flaps a hand at herself, indicating her whole body somehow. “Happening,” she says. “What’s…?”

He knows how overwhelming it can be to have your soulmark touched by someone who matters, but... “But you don’t have a mark there,” he says, baffled.

“I don’t have a mark anywhere,” Nat snaps. “I — Jesus, Rogers. They _remove_ them, when you’re admitted to the Red Room.”

“Oh my god,” he says, feeling sick. Christ, people can do that? People fucking _do that?_ Steve remembers the moment he realized that his mark had changed, the bone-deep shock that had hit him when he realized that something so fundamental to his identity could _change._ The full horror of it hadn’t hit him until later, but now it often comes back to him in nightmares.

He can’t imagine what it would be like to have someone else _remove_ it. To just have that part of himself completely wiped away by some unknown stranger.

She swipes a hand across her face, angrily scrubbing the tears away. “I guess I know where it was, now. And maybe. What it was. Kind of.”

Christ, she didn’t even _know._ But she’s seen his mark. Of course she has. Who hasn’t, these days — even if most people don’t know what they’re looking at when they see the star on his uniform. And whatever she’s got going on with Clint, it’s more than just a fling. Like the lady said: whatever souls are made of, theirs are the same. So that’s two points of reference, for Nat to extrapolate from, but it’s horrifying that she has to.

Steve hovers a little more. “Can I… Would it help if I…” he waves vaguely at her.

She shrugs, but her eyes show white all around.

“It helped Bucky, when he was. You know. Panicking. And the other Howlies, sometimes. If I…” He reaches out again, awkwardly.

She holds herself very still, and he carefully shifts till he’s sitting next to her. “I’m just gonna…” And he puts his hand on the back of her neck, gently. She shudders again, but lets him. He rubs down and then up her spine, slowly, lightly. Her shoulders come down from around her ears a little with each pass of his palm across the place where her soulmark had been, once. He wonders if it had been a star, or if it had been something else. Maybe the hourglass she wears on her belt. Maybe an arrow, like the one she has on her shoulder.

He supposes they’ll never really know.

 

Things change subtly after that. Now, Nat sometimes appears on his couch, with her feet on his coffee table, already watching Netflix on his TV. She knows how he takes his coffee (black, no sugar) so she always brings him something with more sugar than coffee and a fat pile of whip on top. She bitches with him about late stage capitalism and the weird excesses of modern America. It’s like being adopted by a large, semi-murderous stray cat.

Steve never had a sister, but he thinks it might feel like this. Although, he vaguely remembers Bucky beating the snot out of boys who came after his sisters, and Steve feels no such urge with Nat.

When some STRIKE newbie makes a pass, she flirts back, and it’s like Steve can see her luring him in, and when he’s close enough, she leans over and whispers something in his ear.

He doesn’t hear what it is that she says, but it takes a _while_ and by the time she’s done, all the color has drained from the guy’s face.

“Nat,” Steve says in a tone of mild reproach, from the other side of the quinjet. “If you’re going to go for their balls like that, at least wait until _after_ the mission.”

“I’m fine, sir,” the newbie says. He’s not fine. His knees are practically knocking together.

No one tries to make a pass at the Black Widow after that.

 

By then he’s living in DC and he can see Peggy whenever he wants. Visiting her is a strange kind of comfort; like sitting in the dark and playing an old record and letting the warm music make a little bubble of 1943 around him. If he closes his eyes so he can’t see the little red and green lights from all his electronics, then it’s almost like being home.

Except for the empty, scarred over place inside him and the perpetual chill in his bones.

“You’re miles away,” Peggy says.

He blinks back to the present. She’s smiling at him, the wrinkles on her face detracting not a thing from her beauty, in Steve’s opinion. “Sorry,” he says.

“No need to apologize. You’re ninety-six, I’ll make allowances for you.” Her eyes are bright with mischief. “You were telling me about your friend Natasha,” she adds. “You two have compatible marks?”

“Yeah,” he says, shaking himself a little. “Yeah, we do. I think.” He makes himself smile. “What are the odds, right? I mean, how many soulmates does a guy need? Plenty of folks never even met _one_ back home.”

“Hm. Well. You’re not all that special when it comes to that, you know.” She winks, a knowing glint in her brown eyes. “Within a year of moving back to the States I’d met three potential soulmates. No — five, actually. I always forget about poor Jack.” She makes a regretful face. “Daft bastard. Hated him.”

 _“Five?”_ Steve says. He’d always thought the thing with the Howlies was a one-off, a fluke. Fate, maybe.

“Oh yes. And I wasn’t the only one.” She wrinkles more, brows coming together. “The world changes, you know. My mother married a lad she went to school with. Most of her childhood friends never moved out of the town they grew up in. People started moving around, started getting jobs in the city, following their passions instead of just taking over the family shop or working on the family farm. It had already started when we were young. Then the War happened. The _Wars_ happened, really. Lads who’d never been more than a few miles from home were suddenly in France. In Africa. In the Pacific bloody theater.”

“And suddenly they’re finding soulmates they never knew they had,” Steve realizes.

“And it wasn’t always so straightforward as it was for us Howlies.” She can’t seem to stop herself from smiling a little at that. She leans in, conspiratorial. “Not everyone has to be hit over the head with it like that.” She settles back against her pillows. “It isn’t like the world is one big game of Concentration, after all. Not everyone wants a perfect pair match. All sorts might go together. A rainbow and a stormcloud. A bird and the tree that it nests in. That kind of thing. There’s potential everywhere, you just have to get out there and find it.”

“Huh,” Steve says. “I’d never thought of that.” Maybe that’s the reality of what his ma always said. It’s not that they’re predisposed to find their people, it’s that they’re the kind of people who always get up, who always follow their hearts, and those kinds of people tend to end up around like-minded folks.

“The world got smaller while you slept. Plane travel, people moving to other cities, other countries. And now there’s _the internet,_ my goodness. You know my niece Sharon found a soulmate online when she was just a teenager. I think she lives in Australia and wrestles kangaroos or something. They’re very happy.” Her smile is going a little vague, and Steve feels a sick lurch. He knows the look. “You’d… you’d like her, I think.”

“I’m sure I would,” he says. “You tired, Peg? You wanna sleep some? I don’t want to keep you awake.” Sometimes, she can drift off before she loses her grip completely. He can slip away before she wakes up and remembers that he was gone, or forgets what year it is.

She closes her eyes and hums. “World’s gotten so much smaller,” she says. “But there’s so much _more_ in it. Isn’t there?”

He doesn’t answer, and soon enough her breathing evens out.

Peggy’s right, the world _is_ smaller. And he can see how that would make it easier to find soulmates. It makes sense, and it explains why Future People are so weirdly blasé and at the same time bizarrely preoccupied with soulmates and soulmarks.

The thing is, the world might be smaller, but that just makes it painfully obvious to Steve that he’s alone in it now. Peggy had a life, she found other people, she moved on. Steve just can’t quite fathom how. Even with Natasha right there beside him damn near every day…

It’s just not the same.

Steve watches Peggy sleep for a moment, and finds himself thinking about how _peaceful_ she looks, like that. Did he look that peaceful, under the ice? Did someone look at him, looking like _that_ and then say: ‘yup, let’s go ahead and wake him up?’

Steve kind of wants to find that guy and knock his damn teeth in.

 

Steve tries to keep busy, to fill the empty places with work. What else is he supposed to do?

Working with STRIKE is different from working with the Commandos. Steve doesn’t have the same connection with these guys, but he’s pleasantly surprised to find that he doesn’t need it. He’s a good enough tactician that he doesn’t have to rely on that unspoken subconscious link. He doesn’t seem to have it with the other Avengers, not quite anyway.

He thinks that even if he could build a team like the Commandos again, he wouldn’t. Even his bond with Nat feels strangely raw. Too real, when everything else is still faded and distant, like he’s watching his life through a pane of glass. It hasn’t been that long, really, since he lost his whole world. It’s too soon, he figures.

Nat disagrees. She starts trying to find him a date. It's nice of her, in her weird invasive way. She means well. At first, Steve ignores it stiffly, hoping she'll take the hint and back off.

She doesn't. Finally, he actually comes right out and asks: “Come on, Nat. Why are you doing this?” She just looks him dead in the eye and says: “You can't make a place your home if you won't live in it.”

And well. She's not fucking wrong.

 

Things between them continue to evolve. Never in a romantic direction. They’ve got a mutual understanding there, like they’ve got a mutual understanding on most things. They keep each other at arm’s length, but within sight. They’re not moving any closer, they’re moving together, in the same direction, that’s all.

Nat intensifies her training with Steve. They’ve got a connection, and she intends to exploit it. Steve thinks they’ve been doing just fine exploiting it, ever since they made eye contact across a street full of dead aliens and he launched her onto a flying motorcycle.

One day, as he's running into heavy fire, she bellows: “You sure about this, Rogers?”

“Yeah,” he calls back, lifting the shield. “It's gonna be fun.”

 

It's not fun.

It's not _un_ -fun, for Steve at least. The thing is that he only really feels alive anymore when there’s enemy fire coming at him. He knows that's… probably not ideal.

It's just that when his blood is up in the heat of battle, he almost feels like the world around him is real. The colors come back, just for a second. He can just about hear his blood rushing through his veins and he almost feels warm again.

He tries to temper the recklessness with responsibility. He doesn't want to be the cause of any more deaths. He doesn't want to lose any members of his team and he certainly doesn't want to endanger civilians. He has a duty, even if he doesn't have much else.

That time though, that time with Natasha, he maybe let his recklessness get the better of him.

 

He wakes up in medical, with Nat glaring at him.

“You awake?” she asks, her arms folded and her legs slightly spread, like she's getting ready for a fight.

Steve smacks parched lips, swallows the dead taste in his mouth, and grimaces. “Uh huh,” he says, blurry.

“Okay.” And then she's holding his chin, harder than he'd have expected, even knowing her as he does. She grips his whole lower face, fingers digging into his cheeks, and forces him to look her in the eyes, her face mere inches from his. Her gaze is blazing with intensity.

“Mwhuh?” He manages, through the bruising grip she has on him.

“No,” she says, sharp and firm, like she's talking to a dog that's been naughty.

“No what?” He says, having regained the ability to make words happen.

“You _know_ what,” she hisses.

Guilt washes over him, just as clinging and thick as it always had been. He tries to look away but she jerks his chin, she makes him look at her. “Promise me, Steve. Promise you won't.”

He thinks about trying to play dumb. _It was an accident, Nat, I swear, I really thought that rushing those guys was the best plan. How was I to know they had all those guns and they could actually aim?_

But the only way that ends is with her saying it, out loud. Or with her making  _him_ say it, out loud. How the hell could he explain himself? _It's not that I want to die, it's just that I wouldn't mind not being alive anymore. I lost my soulmate, you know. Every soulmate I ever had is dead or has dementia. Does it really count as suicide when you're killing less than half a person?_

 _“Promise me,”_ she says, absolutely savage now.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

She gives him a dangerous look. “Sorry isn’t good enough. You swear to me, Rogers. You give me your goddamn word you won’t do that shit again, or I'll have them put you in a little padded room. See if I fucking don't.”

Panic sets in. God, if they lock him up, he’ll go crazy for real. He already feels insane, but just the thought of it makes him feel trapped, desperate. “I'm trying,” he says, voice going thin and panicky. “I'm already trying, Nat, I swear to Christ.”

“Do _better,”_ she snarls.

“Okay, I—I will,” he says.

“You come to me first, understand? It gets bad, you come to me.”

“Okay,” he says.

“I want your word, Steve.”

“You have it,” he says, and she finally lets go.

It's then that Steve notices she's shaking. The guilt hits him again, harder than any of the bullets did.

She takes a breath to steady herself and the shaking stills at once. It’s like he can see her frosting over. “Good. I told Fury it was a reasonable risk. You did everything you could to protect your team, including yourself. _That_ is what happened. Got it?”

“Yes,” Steve says, ashamed.

“And that is what _will_ happen from here on out. Right?”

“Right,” he says. He feels hollow — it feels like a hollow promise, but he knows he’ll have to at least try to keep it, now, because he gave his word. He feels a twist of childish resentment towards Nat, but he’s never been great at saying no to his soulmates.

She swallows. There's no softness in her, no sympathy or gentleness, and that's how he knows she's being honest when she says: “I know how hard it is. Building from the ground up. Losing your world. But there's a world _here,_ Steve. You just have to live in it.”

He turns his head away, the way he had turned his head away from food when he was too sick to even eat.

“Yeah. It fucking sucks,” she agrees. “But it's what we've got now. It’s worth the trouble, and it’s better than the alternative. You never know what gifts the future will bring you.”

He rolls his head back to look at her. He feels unbearably tired. “Gifts?” he asks, with heavy sarcasm. “Like what?”

“For me?” she says, with the ghost of a smile. “Among other things? You.”

 

A few days later, Peggy somehow finds out, and gets the phone number for his room, and really lays into him for being careless. When she’s with it, she’s very with it, and today is clearly no exception. She yells at him for almost twenty minutes, and he might as well have stars in his fucking eyes, he’s so damn in love with her. It’s different from what he had with Bucky, different from what he has with Nat, but that doesn't make it less powerful. Just different.

“What were you _thinking?_ What would we have done without you?” She bellows down the line. “The world _needs_ people like you. Do you have any idea what we _lost_ when we lost you?”

All Steve can do at that is wipe his eyes and sniff loudly. “Yes ma’am,” he says.

“You’re not alone out here. I wish you could see that.”

“I’m starting to get that,” Steve admits.

“Well. No one ever accused you of being quick on the uptake,” she says, and she sounds so _herself_ that he can’t help laughing. “I know it’s hard,” she says, only a fraction softer. “But I swear, if you make me go to your funeral again, I will bring you back to life and kill you myself. Understood?”

He laughs again. “Yes ma’am.”

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iii - dabih: slaughterer**

_“It is possible to outlive your soulmate, but it’s not recommended.” - Anonymous_

 

 

 

He’s been living (for whatever value of living he does these days) in DC and working with Nat for over a year when he wakes up in the dead of night, panting.

He feels _hot._ He shoves the blankets off, but he’s shaking. His bones ache. His head is _killing him._ It takes him a moment to remember where he is. He’s in… the ice? He’s in DC. He’s in his apartment in DC, and it’s 2014.

He stumbles out of bed. He feels feverish and the contrast between his overheated skin and the chilly floor of his apartment makes him shudder. It makes him think of fevers when he was younger, when he was too warm, and that just made him feel like the air around him was too cold. But closer, more present than that memory is something worse. Something more… intrusive. It makes him think of the ice. Makes him feel like he’s thawing out all over again. Makes him think of the creaking and snapping arctic around him.

He stumbles to the bathroom and fumbles the shower on, as hot as he can stand.  He’s already trying to convince himself that it’s just an anomaly, it doesn’t mean anything. _Come on, Rogers, this isn’t worse than scarlet fever, it’s just a little chill. A nightmare or something. Take a shower, have a run. If you don’t feel better after that, then you can go to medical._

Maybe. He doesn’t want to be a bother.

Unless... it’s not _him_ that’s warm. He used to feel Bucky’s aches and chills, sometimes. Not so much with the Howlies or Peggy, but…

By the time he’s out of the shower, he still feels feverish, but his bones aren’t aching quite so bad. Still. He texts Nat to see if she’s okay, just in case. She’s “undercover” but she responds quickly with a cryptic series of emojis that he thinks means she’s fine. But possibly she’s adopted a cat or something? Future People are weird. He’s pretty sure Natasha is weird even by Future People standards.

It doesn’t occur to him until he’s put the phone away that he’s felt vaguely chilled since he came out of the ice, and just now, he doesn’t.

Maybe he’s finally thawing out.

Steve runs a towel through his hair and goes to his (ridiculously large) closet to get his (absurdly overpriced) running gear. His mind isn’t on the clothes though. He’s turning over the thought in his head. _Maybe he’s finally thawing out._

Ever since he woke up in that horrible fake room, it’s like the world exists apart from him. He’s been looking at it all through frosted glass. Until he met Natasha and got unceremoniously dragged into the whole world-saving business (again) he hadn’t _felt_ much. Maybe it’s like Nat says: you can’t make a place your home if you don’t live in it. Maybe this is what happens when you start living in a place.

Maybe he should try saying yes to the next date Nat tries to set him up on.

His stomach flips over, and it’s like he can feel the ghost of Bucky’s hand on his soulmark.

He’s not ready for that.

He pulls on his shoes and leaves the apartment.

 

A few hours later, Steve passes a fellow jogger on the bridge and immediately, he _knows._ He knows it like he used to know the smell of bread baking three blocks away when he hadn't eaten all day. He hasn't seen Nat in a few weeks; she's been “undercover,” which Steve suspects a normal person would call being “on vacation.” So she’s been away, and, well…

His soul has been crying out for a mate. He tries not to think of it in terms that goddamn maudlin, because frankly it’s embarrassing. Maybe his ma was right, that when they meet their people, they _know._ And maybe that got dialed up to eleven (as Tony is always saying) along with everything else. He’d known with the Commandos, he’d known with Peggy, and he knows it now, from the very first _on your left._ He may not know exactly how, or where, or what, but he knows. It sits deep in his bones, next to where he used to be colder, where he used to feel Bucky.

So he takes a chance and introduces himself to Sam Wilson from the 58th Pararescue.

They chat like they’ve been friends for years, finishing each other’s sentences. Sam says: “When I was over there I’d sleep on the ground, use rocks for pillows like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed, and it’s like…”

And Steve hears the Brooklyn crawling into his consonants, hardening his th’s and t’s when he finishes the sentence: “Lyin’ on a marshmallow. Feel like I’m gonna sink right through the floor.”

Sam nods, and there’s a frankly painful relief in his face. Like he’s been looking for someone who gets it, too. Steve’s not sure, at that point, whether Sam realizes. Possibly Sam’s trusting Steve because Steve is Captain America. But that's not why Steve trusts Sam.

Maybe _this_ is what happens when you make a place your home. You start warming up and finding soulmates just lying around everywhere.

Their marks will match, one way or another. It’s not quite the overwhelming connection he had with Bucky, but it’s strong. Steve doesn't need to see the mark to know, and he carefully doesn't clap Sam on the back, between the shoulder blades, where his soulmark probably is. He doesn't want to overwhelm him or scare him away. They just chat, and Steve keeps his hands busy with the notebook. Just in case.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

Later — after the Lemurian Star, and Batroc, and the fight with Nat, and the argument with Nick — when Steve needs someone to talk to (someone other than Nat, because Nat is part of the problem, and that hurts almost more than anything) he goes to Sam at the VA. None of STRIKE would understand. He sure as hell can’t go to Fury. Fury, and Natasha, they were running an entire op behind his back, like they don’t trust him, and how can he trust _them_ if—

“Well look who it is.” Sam doesn’t even look surprised to see Steve there. “The Running Man.”

And again, the words come easy, even if he has to shove his hands deep in his pockets to keep from reaching out. It feels like talking to Monty, or Jim, or Gabe, any of those guys who’d known. _We all got the same problems,_ like Sam says, and Steve knows before he even asks, again. He _knows._

“You lose someone?”

Of course the answer is yes. There’s that knowing look in Sam’s eye. The hollowness that Steve recognizes from the mirror. Sam talks about his wingman, and Steve could be watching himself talk about Bucky.

Except Steve never talks about Bucky.

“Nothing I could do,” Sam finishes. “It’s like I was up there just to watch.”

Steve wants to say that he gets it, he wants to say that he knows, he _knows._ But he can’t find the words.

This is what’s missing from his bond with Natasha. What he and Nat have is comfortable, but it’s static. She asks for nothing much, but she gives even less in return. She doesn’t trust him, and if he’s honest, he can’t blame her. She can’t possibly be certain that he’ll still be here in a month or a year, with the way he’s been carrying on. The guilt batters at him again, fierce and overwhelming.

“I’m sorry,” is all Steve can say, and hope that it’s enough. It must be, because the conversation flows on, easy and heartfelt and _God._

Steve hasn’t thanked God since Tony Stark’s eyes snapped open two years ago, but he thanks God for Sam Wilson. Finding Sam feels like finding a tether in a storm. Something solid to hold onto.

“What makes you happy?” Sam asks, eventually.

Steve has to think about it.

Nat makes him happy, most of the time, but they don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and the only thing worse than fighting with a friend is fighting with a soulmate.

The Howlies had made him happy. Bucky had made him happy. Peggy had made him happy -- still does, when she remembers him.

Future People have lots of names for it now. Platonic soulmates, like what Steve had with the Howlies, or what he has now with Nat. Steve thinks ‘platonic’ is a little reductive, but whatever. And there are romantic soulmates, like him and Bucky and, well, probably Peggy too, if he’s honest. And there are sexual soulmates, which. Also Bucky? Sexual-romantic soulmates, which… Steve can't quite imagine the one without the other so... And sexual-platonic, which… fine? And sometimes they say mark-matched instead, and…

It’s a lot to keep track of. But apparently in this day and age it would’ve been fine for him and Bucky to be…

But Steve tries not to think about that too much. Regrets will drive you crazy.

The point is that there are _names,_ and _terminology,_ and Sam will want him to be _specific,_ because Future People always want him to be _specific,_ and it reminds him of the goddamn _kitchen._

Back in New York, a very well-meaning SHIELD agent had shown him around his kitchen. “Here,” she said. “This is a machine to mix up ingredients, and this is a machine to mix ingredients for smoothies, and this is a machine to mix bread dough, and this is a handheld mixer.” And he said: “do you not have spoons in the future?” And then the agent had done that thing where people look at him like they want to laugh, but they're not sure whether he's joking, and they don't want it to seem like they're laughing _at_ him.

He was mostly joking. It's just that no one expects Captain America to have a sense of humor. He kept making jokes for a bit, with increasing desperation, but after a while he'd had to give up. Until he met Nat, who seemed to get his black, deadpan humor in a way no one else did.

And now there’s Sam. Who is now watching him, patient and understanding. Steve’s been quiet too long again, hasn’t he? That look on Sam’s face, sad and all too knowing, makes Steve feel like he's 5 feet tall again.

_What makes you happy?_

“I don't know,” Steve admits.

He can’t even imagine what would make him smile the way Sam does, in this day and age. He left all his reasons to smile in the last century.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

  

But all of that becomes academic once someone shoots Nick Fury through the wall of Steve's apartment.

Steve feels alive the way he only does when he's doing _this._ He’s maybe not _happy,_ but at least he’s _focused._ At least he’s fucking _present._ He has a goal in sight, an enemy to outmaneuver, the shield on his arm. When he's doing _this,_ he knows where he stands. He knows what he's for.

And if he has to commit egregious property damage while doing it, well. That's just a plus. He can feel badly about it later.

He busts through the window and throws himself across the gap between buildings, rolls and comes up already throwing the shield.

And then.

He _feels_ the guy catch it: feels it juddering deep in his bones. He stares, and the guy stares back over the curve of the shield. Steve's heart thumps loud in his ears, blood pounding, skin tingling. The assassin's got a mask covering most of his face, and the part of Steve's brain that still notices things like composition and highlights notes that it's a near perfect inverse of the Captain America helmet-cowl.

There's a moment when they both hesitate. He sees the guy’s eyes widen, the whites accentuated by the eyeblack smeared around them.

Steve belatedly becomes aware that his shoulders have relaxed, that he isn't braced for the fight that should be starting any second now. His posture is open, trusting. This guy could shoot Steve right now and Steve wouldn't be able to —

But instead of taking the shot, the guy winds back with his arm — his metal arm, Steve can hear the servos whining — and throws the shield back. Returns Steve's most valuable weapon, like they're playing catch.

And that's when Steve's sure.

It's only surprising it didn't happen earlier. He managed to stumble upon half a dozen soulmates after twenty minutes of fighting Nazis; it's only surprising he didn't stumble upon a soulmate fighting for the other team sooner. Patriotism goes both ways, after all. So he knows.

(Or he thinks he does.)

But with the target out of sight, his focus grays out again. He can’t hear his heart anymore. The buzz fades out from under his skin, like life draining out from his body and—

_Shit. Nick._

 

* * *

  

…

 

* * *

 

It seems like the next minute, he’s standing in an observation area, watching Nick lose the fight to stay alive.

He feels Natasha coming before she bursts through the door, and nothing they were fighting about matters anymore, because she’s vibrating with tension beside him.

“Is he gonna make it?” she asks, trying for light and missing by a mile.

“I don’t know.” Steve doesn’t know anything, these days. He thinks dully back to the rooftop. The colors had come back, for a moment. The frost had lifted from the glass, but it’s back again. Natasha is standing beside him, and she doesn’t want his comfort, even if he had the first clue for how to comfort her.

“Tell me about the shooter,” Natasha says, quiet, like they’re in a church. Or like someone might be listening.

Well. Maria and Sitwell are here aren’t they.

“He was fast. Strong.” He doesn’t take his eye off the OR, and the window. He needs to tell Natasha. _We were mark-matched,_ he needs to tell her. _Which means he’s a mark-match for you too, so watch yourself._

But he can’t say that. _Ears everywhere._ He hears Sitwell shifting, near the door, like he wants to go, but can’t.

“Had a metal arm,” Steve finishes, lamely.

“Ballistics?” Natasha whispers.

“Three slugs. No rifling, completely untraceable,” Maria says.

“Soviet made,” Natasha says.

Steve looks over at her, just for a moment, and she risks a glance at him.

She knows already, he can tell. She knows this assassin, somehow—

But then Nick Fury is dying. Sitwell and Maria are still there, watching, listening, and Steve might trust Natasha, but Fury said not to trust _anyone_ and—

And then he’s dead.

The doctor says “Call it,” and Steve is suddenly aware that this person, this person who he’d befriended, and fought with, and served under, is now no longer a person. He’s just a body on a slab, like so many others Steve has known.

Steve flees the observation room.

He doesn’t really recall seeking out a bathroom, but the next thing he knows, he’s splashing cold water on his face. He looks at himself in the mirror, blue eyes with a bit of green around the pupil. Pale, like the assassin’s.

Steve shudders again, but he isn’t cold.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

“Why was Fury in your apartment?” Natasha asks, in the hollow wake of Fury’s death.

The place is crawling with SHIELD, but that’s not why Steve lies. “I don’t know,” he says, trying to do his best to follow a dead man’s orders.

Natasha narrows her eyes the way she does when she’s about to figure something out and Steve needs to _fix this,_ he is _not_ a good liar—

“Cap. They want you back at SHIELD.”

Steve turns and sees that it’s Rumlow. Steve likes Rumlow, but Rumlow’s no mark-match, and Nat’s a soulmate. Nat comes first. “Yeah, give me a second.”

“They want you _now,”_ Rumlow says.

Steve stares him down, just for a beat. Who the hell were _they,_ anyway, and what could they possibly need that was more important than this? He mentally runs through an entire speech about Not Being Rude, Even In A Crisis, before he says “okay” with the strongest “fuck off” vibe he can muster.

Rumlow gives a slight nod, looking almost apologetic, but also, weirdly, relieved?

And when Steve turns back to Nat, it’s too late. His moment to fix this has passed, and Natasha has closed herself off again. She’s smirking at him, mean-edged and hiding hurt. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Steve bows his head, and hates himself a little more than usual, as she walks away.

There’s nothing worse than fighting with a soulmate.

 

* * *

  

…

 

* * *

 

Fighting with _STRIKE,_ on the other hand…

Steve stands in an elevator full of men — his _colleagues,_ his goddamn _co-workers_ — and thinks: _no one ever shares the elevator with me._ He thinks: _those guys aren’t from admin._ He thinks: _and why the hell is Rollins going to records?_

And for the first time he realizes how actively odd it is that none of the STRIKE team is mark-linked with him. In retrospect, that’s a little suspicious, given his history with the Commandos and SHIELD’s reputation for exploiting any and every advantage. Some people go their whole lives and never meet a soulmate. Steve’s met ten at least, most of them while working for SHIELD, or the SSR.

But if any of the STRIKE team were mark-linked with him, he’d know. He’d feel it. And now, he would feel their anxiety, their nerves. He would know that they were about to betray him. And anyway, if they were mark-linked with him, they _wouldn’t_ betray him. They wouldn’t be like that.

He looks at the men packed in around them and thinks _I have more in common with a metal-armed assassin than I do with any of you._

He's going to fucking _destroy_ them.

And while he's doing that, oh how alive he feels.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

  

Later, back at the hospital and still aching from his fall, Natasha appears behind him, her reflection snapping gum and meeting his gaze with a challenge and he thinks—

He and I have compatible marks. She and I have compatible marks. If a=b and b=c, then…

_Soviet made._

And Natasha was an assassin too.

_Stupid. Idiot. Naive._

He slams Natasha against the wall and feels it in his own spine. It makes him feel sickeningly alive for a second. And then it makes him feel just plain sick. It makes him think of those people you hear about who hurt their own soulmates, deliberately, because they enjoy feeling someone else's suffering. Even terrible people have soulmates, and sometimes good people have terrible soulmates and Steve wonders if he's one or the other.

 _No, focus._ Now is not the time to get lost in his own head again.

“I’m not the only one you share a soulmark with,” he hisses. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know who he is,” she says, warily.

He grips her arms tight, and says, through gritted teeth: “Do better.”

She winces, and knows her words are being thrown back at her. “I don’t _remember_ who he is,” she corrects, and it costs her something. “I only _act_ like I know everything, Rogers.”

And that gives him pause, because he’s read her file, he knows she was brainwashed, had false memories implanted and real memories removed. He wants to trust her, but—

He shoves her against the wall more forcefully. “I’m not going to ask you again,” he snarls.

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier…”

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

  

“Hey man,” Sam says, looking a little confused, and well. Steve gets it. They look like the saddest lost puppies from the saddest superhero pound.

“I’m sorry about this,” Steve says. “We need a place to lay low.”

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

He _feels_ the bullet tearing into Nat’s shoulder as if it were his own, but he puts his head down and powers through it, charging into the fight and—

The thing about fighting someone with a mark that matches yours is that it's _hard._ You're just not designed to do that. You feel each hit land, and you feel the wrongness of someone else's pain under your own skin.

The Soldier is a brutal fighter, but his shots go wide in a way Steve suspects isn't usual. And Steve _could_ take the guy's head off with the right throw from the shield, except that he _can't._ It's like taking the last step off a cliff. Every part of you, even the part that planned it all, suddenly starts screaming no.

Steve grits his teeth and keeps throwing punches, keeps trying to get the upper hand, but he's on the back foot and he knows it, doesn't know how to fix it. He hears the Soldier’s harsh breathing and the whine of servos straining against Steve's super strength.

A knife passes perilously close to his face—

He jams his knee into the guy’s chest hard enough to feel his own ribs creak in sympathy—

A metal fist closes on his throat, and he hears the Soldier’s breath gurgle, but it doesn’t stop him from throwing Steve over the car and—

Where the hell do all these _knives_ keep coming from and—

Steve hooks a hand under the guy’s muzzled chin and heaves him in a move that would’ve snapped a non-super-soldier’s neck and—

The mask clatters to the pavement. The Soldier rolls, stumbles slightly, and gets his feet beneath him. He

turns

and—

Steve can hear his heart beating in his chest, a steady pounding drumbeat under his ribs. He can feel his skin flushing hot with exertion, and suddenly there is air in his lungs, moving in and out. There are colors all around him — it's been years since he noticed them.

He's breathing. He's alive.

“...Bucky?”

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iv - algol: the ghoul**

_**They Can’t Take That Away From Me** **  
** Billie Holiday _

_The way your mark meets mine,_  
_The way we danced 'til three;_  
_The way your eyes just shine_  
_No, no, they can't take that away from me._

 

 

 

The Asset is in the vault. Everything is very vivid around him in a way that doesn’t feel standard. He can hear his heart beating, or perhaps he is simply more aware of it. His skin feels like it’s warmer than usual, less numb, like he’s feeling more things. He feels like someone turned up the saturation on his visual display and dialed his senses up to match. He is _present._ He is _here._

And at the same time. He is _not here._ He is in the vault, but he is—

—on the train—

—he is _in the vault._ The technicians are repairing the Arm—

—the man with glasses is _taking his arm, oh God—_

The man on the bridge is saying

 _—his name, his fucking_ **_name_ ** _—_

—a word he doesn’t know.

He knows the man—

—he’s reaching with every fiber in him crying out to touch, to reach just that little bit farther, _oh God, Stevie, Stevie please—_

—he’s never seen him before, that he can recall, but he

_knows him._

He should tell the Handler this. The Handler will be able to expand on the briefing, will be able to give him the answers he needs to complete the mission.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **v - achernar: river’s end**

_“Is that meant to shock me? People are vultures, of course there was speculation. It was none of my business then, so it’s certainly none of your business now. They were soulmates, but so were the rest of us. Call them best friends, call them brothers, call them whatever you like. All that we knew, all that we ever needed to know, was that anyone who tried to come between Rogers and Barnes would end up dying in a fire. ”_

_Falsworth, James Montgomery. “The Last Howling Commando Speaks.” Interview by Lyle Everhart. Time, May 16, 1995._

 

 

 

Steve thinks it’s probably unpatriotic of him to be fantasizing about the various ways he would like to violently murder Alexander Pierce.

He doesn’t care.

“This man declined a Nobel Peace Prize,” Fury is saying. Because of course Fury isn't dead. _Bucky_ isn't dead, so why should this be a surprise. There’s an ache in Steve’s skull, making it hard to concentrate. “He said peace wasn’t an achievement, it was a responsibility.”

Steve digs his fingers and thumb into his temples and rubs, hard. The ache is creeping up from his spine now, becoming more insistent. He had a headache like this the morning he met Sam. The morning this whole mess started. Feels like years ago now.

“See, it’s stuff like this that gives me trust issues.”

“We have to stop the launch,” Nat says.

Steve lets his hand fall from his face. She’s looking to him. The ache is behind his eyes now, stabbing and sharp. It’s building.

“I don’t think the Council’s accepting my calls anymore,” Fury says, and he—

Opens a case, and Sam is saying something, very far away. Maria is saying something, muffled like she’s underwater. The dull throb of pain is increasing in pitch, in volume, the buzzing is building and building. Steve tries to push through, to ignore it. Now isn't the time.

Fury and Maria are talking about targeting computers and helicarriers and _maybe, just maybe we can salvage—_

“We’re not salvaging anything,” Steve snaps, and the words reverberate through his head. Painful, but true. He grits his teeth.

“Steve?” Nat says. “Are you—”

“We’re not just taking down the carriers, we’re taking down SHIELD,” Steve insists. This is _important._ They need to _understand._ He doesn’t have time for his body to be—

“Steve, man, you alright? You look a little—”

—malfunctioning like this, he has a _mission to complete. Soldier, your work isn’t done yet._

“You gave me this mission, this is how it ends,” Steve says.

“Captain, are you alright?”

Steve can’t actually see them, the pain has hit his eyes and everything is going blurred at the edges, a halo of light around everything, obscuring the whole bunker in a faded out blaze.

“SHIELD, HYDRA…” he says, insistent. He needs to tell them. Needs to— “It… it all goes…”

It all goes white, and the buzzing in his head becomes a scream that goes on and on and on and wipes out everything, _everything is going away, burning away, lightning crackling over all the circuitry and frying every piece leaving only smoke and charred neurons his head hurts oh please it hurts it hurts—_

“Bucky—” Steve gasps.

_Who the hell is—_

 

* * *

  

…

 

* * *

 

“Steve?” Someone is saying.

A light in his eyes. On, and then off again. He blinks. A dark face is hovering over him, and for a moment he doesn’t recognize…

And for a minute, he thinks:

_What are my orders?_

But then it all comes back in a rush. _Steve._ That’s him, and _Sam,_ hovering over him, looking worried, and—

“Bucky,” he says, surging up. Sam makes a startled noise, and his hands flutter, like he wants to push Steve back down. Steve ignores him. “They’re doing something to Bucky. They’re…”

Nat is standing there, pale faced and thin lipped.

 _I don’t_ remember _who he is,_ she’d said. And he’d said it himself. _He looked right at me, like he didn’t even know me._ And Bucky — _who the hell is Bucky?_

Steve feels sick. He stands up, despite Sam’s faint, distant sounding “whoa, man, I don’t think—”

Steve’s out of the room.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

  

Out on top of the dam, he leans against the railing, takes deep lungfuls of air and _remembers._

 

Things changed between them, after Steve’s ma died. That was the first time they slept together and did more than just kiss on each other, and that was when Steve threw all remaining caution to the wind and agreed to move in with Bucky. After that they’re a hell of a lot more than _best friends since childhood,_ as if that isn’t enough.

They’re living together all of three weeks when Old Lady Hubbard almost walks in on them _in flagrante,_ and Steve only manages to preserve their reputations by pretending he’s sick and probably contagious.

Once she’s gone, he leans his back against the door, and Bucky crawls out from under the bed, shirtless, and hopelessly mussed, and so goddamn beautiful. “Well that was close,” he says, with a wry little smile.

“This is crazy,” Steve whispers. “God, Buck, this is _crazy,_ we can’t be _doing this.”_

Bucky scrambles out further, the white lines of his soulmark standing out against his tanned back. “We just gotta be more careful is all,” Bucky says, softly. The walls here are paper thin.

Steve shuts his eyes against the sight of him, _so goddamn beautiful._ “This was a bad idea, I shouldn’t’a ever said yes.”

“Nice how you say that like this wasn’t _your idea,”_ Bucky says, exasperated beyond reason, and then he throws Steve’s words back at him, in a mockery of Steve’s rough voice. _“It ain’t fair,_ he says. _It ain’t right,_ he says. _I dare you,_ he says. But _now,_ all of a sudden, it’s a _bad idea.”_

Steve scowls. “This isn’t a joke!”

“Good, cuz I ain’t laughing.” They’re both still whispering, _damn_ their thin walls.

“If we got caught, you know what could happen,” Steve insists, opening his eyes now, pleading.

“Yeah, I do, so how’s about you give me some credit here. I knew what I was getting into, and so did you. Ya telling me now it ain’t worth it to ya?”

Steve’s never been a good liar, so he doesn’t say anything.

Bucky comes closer, until Steve has to tip his head back and look up, just inches separating their chests. Well. Steve’s chest and Bucky’s ribs. Bucky’s hands come up, and if they were different people, gentler people, he might have cradled Steve’s face. But what he does instead is _grab_ Steve’s face and dig his fingers in. “How many times I gotta tell you, huh? How many ways I gotta say it before you get it through your thick skull? It’s too late. You’re stuck with me, Rogers.”

Steve makes a frustrated sound. “Bucky—”

“They’re gonna have to bury us in one hole.”

“I don’t wanna bring you down with—”

“This is a real Bonnie and Clyde situation with you and me,” Bucky says flatly. He refuses to let go of Steve’s face.

“If anything happens to you, I’ll never forgive my—mmph!”

Bucky kisses him, a real movie-star kiss that doesn’t give Steve much in terms of leeway. He just holds on to Bucky’s waist and lets himself be kissed. It goes on long enough that he kisses back out of self defense.

When they finally break apart, Steve finds himself breathing hard into what very little space is left between them.

“I am with you,” Bucky says, very slowly, like maybe Steve is half-witted as well as half-deaf. “Until the end of the line.”

Steve opens his eyes and finds Bucky already staring at him, too close to really focus on properly.

“Geddit?” Bucky says, so quietly.

Steve nods. He gets it.

 

* * *

 

…

 

* * *

 

“Please don’t make me do this.”

But all there is in Steve’s head is the faded ache of whatever they did to Bucky, the distant buzzing of Bucky’s confusion, and the faint sensation he used to get when Bucky was calculating angles, getting ready for a shot.

The metal arm comes up to block the shield before it’s even out of Steve’s hand, and then they’re going again—

He hears Bucky’s snarl of pain when the bullet hits Steve’s side, and—

Yup, there really is always another knife, and—

Steve slams the shield hard into the arm, gets a breath to pull up the targeting blades when—

He turns back a split second before the knife comes at him again, Bucky’s grunt of exertion _so familiar,_  now that he’s hearing it for what it is. Another flurry of blows, kicks, fists, that knife, the arm makes a ratcheting noise, Steve can _feel_ it about to push, so he pulls back first, disengages. He puts a boot in Bucky’s chest, feels the reverberation in his own chest, but it gives him a moment to get back to the targeting computer and—

He barely brings the shield up in time, and the arm echoes against it like a gong. And it’s this again, fists and the shield, but he can feel Bucky’s rage building, building into a dull bellow as Bucky tackles him right off the walkway and this time they’re _both_ falling, still fighting, to the platform below, and then to the glass floor below that.

It’s all pain and brutal punches, a stalemate because they both know when the other is about to attack. Steve accidentally gives Bucky the shield when it slips out of his grip and a moment later it’s _whanging_ against his back. Bucky accidentally gives Steve his knife when he leaves it in Steve’s shoulder, and then—

Bucky grabs the chip.

_No._

Steve heaves him up in the air by the throat, throws him back on the ground, and every bit of it, he _feels in his own body,_ teeth gritted against Bucky’s pain. He hooks his arm around Bucky’s, gets him into a lock, and _pushes._

“Drop it!”

Bucky doesn’t.

_“Drop it!”_

Steve feels Bucky’s shoulder pop from the joint, a sharp pain that echoes between them along with Bucky’s scream.

He needs to put Bucky down, needs to get him out of the fight, and that’s the only thought in his head as he gets his arm around Bucky’s throat and tries to keep breathing himself through the shrill beat of Bucky’s panic as his air runs out… and his thoughts get… thick…

Bucky drops the chip and Steve drops him, snatches it up, and runs, vaults, jumps. His head is clearing, he—

The first shot catches him in the thigh. He looks back and sees Bucky stagger, favoring Steve’s injury, his flesh arm clutched to his chest. Even at this distance, his eyes are wide.

Steve can’t stop now.

The second shot wings him, the arm that’s already had a blade through the shoulder. But he has to keep going.

“Thirty seconds, Cap!”

“Standby.” _Jesus that stings, shit._ “Char—”

The next shot goes through his gut.

Steve’s got no breath to scream, but there’s a scream anyway. Bucky’s screaming for him, and Steve can hear him crumple to the floor, somewhere below.

Gut wounds hurt like nothing else. But Steve’s got a lifetime of experience with this: pushing through the pain. This is more important than his pain, it’s more important than his life, it’s more important than him and Buck.

“Charlie lock,” Steve says, when the targeting blade slides home.

“Okay, Cap, get outta there!”

There’s no _time_ for that. “Fire now.”

“But Ste—”

“Do it! Do it now!”

There’s only a beat of hesitation, and then, the thunder.

The helicarrier lurches, first one way, then the other, tossing Steve along with it. The whole world is blowing up around him, coming down around him. Fire and screaming metal and—

Screaming.

 _Bucky_ screaming.

Trapped.

Steve blindly follows the feel of Bucky’s panic, focusing on Bucky’s pain rather than his own as he jumps off the walkway and drops heavily to the place where Bucky is pinned. It doesn’t matter that they’re both probably going to die here. It doesn’t matter that the helicarrier is going down. It doesn’t matter that Bucky reacts to the sight of him with fear and confusion, not recognition.

Steve’s got no choice but to help. He feels weak as a kitten from the pain reverberating through his body, but he gets his arms around the beam, strains, and heaves, and between his serum and Bucky’s, they get the beam lifted, and Bucky crawls free.

For a moment, they just pant and stare at each other through a haze of pain. And there’s a flicker of—

“You know me,” Steve growls.

“No I don’t!” comes with a fist to the shield.

He’s lying. Steve can feel it.

“Bucky.” They stare at each other again, and the flicker of recognition that Bucky felt is almost eclipsed by his terror. “You’ve known me your whole life.”

Another fist. Steve doesn’t get the shield up in time. And he can hear Bucky’s grunt as he feels the blow land.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve insists.

_“Shut up!”_

This blow sends Steve flying, and this isn’t _working,_ Steve needs to get through _faster_ or they’ve got no chance at all of getting outta here alive.

Who’s he kidding.

There’s already no chance of that.

He tears off his helmet, staggers to his feet and sees Bucky already staring at him. “I’m not gonna fight you,” Steve says, and lets the shield fall. “Not you.”

Bucky’s on his feet too, now, swaying, staring. Steve lets himself be open to it, doesn’t let himself raise a block or so much as think about fighting back.

“You…” Bucky’s breathing hard. “You’re in my head. Why?”

“You _know_ why,” Steve says.

Bucky’s face twists in rage and he throws himself at Steve. It’s a terrible tackle, but Steve doesn’t even try to block or dodge, just lets Bucky’s weight carry them down to the edge of what’s left of the floor.

“I don’t know you,” Bucky hisses, like he’s trying to convince himself. “I — don’t — know — _you!”_ punctuated by that relentless metal fist, smashing into Steve’s face.  By the fierce twist on Bucky’s face, he’s gotta be feeling it. He’s hurting himself as much as he’s hurting Steve.

Steve grabs the front of Bucky’s tactical jacket, fingers slipping and tangling in the straps. He pulls Bucky close, and the metal arm comes down by his head, instead of into his face, bracing Bucky so he’s hovering over Steve. His face twists in uncertainty.

“Yeah you do,” Steve whispers. He brings his other hand up, and blindly finds the back of Bucky’s jacket, pressing, pressing _through,_ and he feels it, the connection, the mark under his hands, even through all that kevlar. He feels whole again, and that hurts too, like stretching a sore muscle.

Bucky’s eyes go wide.

“It’s okay,” Steve says. “I’m here. I’m with you. To the end of the line.”

The girder groans and gives beneath them, and then everything is going down.

 

* * *

 

This time (this time?) they fall together. In the moment of the weightless drop, the Target wraps his arms around the Asset and holds tight. Without thinking, the Asset mirrors this.

For reasons he can’t explain, it feels right to cling like this, and fall.

 

* * *

 

Steve opens his eyes and Bucky is there, hovering over him and glaring. Except for the long hair, it’s a familiar sight.

“I _don’t,”_ Bucky hisses, like they’re continuing a conversation. “I _don't…_ know.” Like he's struggling with the words, like talking is hard. Or maybe just this. Maybe just saying this is hard.

Steve shakes his head weakly, tries to speak, but can only cough. There’s a hand on his cheek. It’s smooth, cool metal. It’s _Bucky,_ so he turns his face into the touch. The thumb rubs, cold and slippery with water.

“... Me,” Bucky says. That doesn't make sense. What was he saying? What did Steve miss?

But he’s fading fast. He can’t keep his eyes open any longer...

 

* * *

 

The Target’s eyes roll back and flutter closed, and the Asset can _feel_ him drifting into unconsciousness. He can hear chopper blades approaching, he knows that he has to go, but he can’t _stop this,_ crouched over the Target like a— like a—

Like a something.

The Asset lurches to his feet, unsteady. He knows that the Target’s wounds will soon begin to close. As long as his heart is still beating (it is) and the dirty river water is out of his lungs so he can breathe (the Target _needs to keep breathing)_ then he will likely recover. The Asset knows all this and more. _I don’t know you_ — that was a blatant, pointless lie. He knows the Target like the Target knows him. He knows the Target from the inside out, but…

_I don’t know me._

The chopper blades are coming closer. The Asset glances warily over his shoulder, then staggers away towards the tree-line.

Retreat. Regroup.

 

* * *

 

Steve opens his eyes and Bucky is gone.

He closes his eyes.

 

* * *

 

The Asset tries to remember.

He _tries._

 

* * *

 

Steve opens his eyes and Sam is there.

“On your left.”

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vi - alshain: the falcon**

_**Trouble Mark** _  
_Marvin Gaye_

 _I’m marked up hard, baby_  
_But it’s for real, baby_  
_With a trouble sign_  
_Don’t let it bring you down_  
  
_It came up hard_  
_It come up, black and brown_  
_There's only three things for sure_  
_Soulmarks, death, and trouble_

 

 

 

You learn an awful lot about another guy while you’re chasing a fugitive across international borders.

You learn that any discussion of music will probably end with Earth, Wind, and Fire, if it goes on long enough. You learn that you have a shared love of Billie Holiday, but the best way to honor that shared love is by _not singing along, Steve you are ruining it._ You learn that Applebee’s is a Restaurant of Last Resort only, and diners are preferable as long as they aren’t too “gnarly looking.”

You learn some stuff about yourself, too. You learn that you like the Beatles, but you must never tell Sam that, because that’s just asking for a fight. You learn all the lyrics to _Uptown Funk._ Because _even your tone deaf ass can’t ruin a bop like that._ You learn that  you can’t get food poisoning (Sam can.) You learn that you snore (Bucky never said anything — seven years sleeping in the same bed and _he never said anything.)_

But it might take you a while to learn each other’s soulmarks.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t a difficult equation.

Intel retrieved from the Smithsonian, plus statements made by the Target on the helicarrier, plus evidence from the Asset’s own perception (he can trust his eyes and ears, so why not the evidence of his other sense, that strange inner sense like a compass needle in his guts) equals:

The Winter Soldier and Captain America are _soulmates._

Which means the game has changed. The game _must_ change. New mission statement, new imperatives, new rules.

He’s his own master now. Time to get rid of all the leashes.

 

* * *

 

At the start of their manhunt/roadtrip, Steve wakes up with a feeling like someone has scrubbed his bones with steel wool, set off a not-dummy grenade in his skull, and used an electric mixer on his intestines.

He ends up getting very well acquainted with the toilet in their motel.

“Stomach bug?” Sam says, sounding both grossed out and concerned.

Steve hasn’t gotten a stomach bug since 1943, and that’s when he was regularly eating expired c-rations. He shakes his head and spits into the toilet bowl, then flushes it. "Serum. Can't get sick."

“Could be complications,” Sam adds, sounding more worried. “You were gutshot three weeks ago.”

Steve shakes his head again and leans back against the cool tile. “I don’t think it’s me,” he says hoarsely. He hears the tap turn on, and then off, and a moment later Sam hands him a damp cloth to clean his face with. “Thanks.”

Sam sits on the floor across from him. “You got MPR with Barnes?”

Steve squints his eyes open. “MPR?”

“Mate Pain Response.”

Of course they’ve got a _name_ for it, here in the future. Of course they do. “Is that what they call it?”

“Yeah, that’s what they call it. It’s a… well it’s a side effect, I guess. When you’re mark-matched with someone, the stronger your bond, the stronger your MPR. Was it bad? With Barnes?”

Bucky is falling all over again, in Steve’s head, and Steve’s face must be talking, because Sam winces hard.

“Shit,” he says. “I’m sorry, man.”

Steve drags the cloth over his face. “So it probably isn’t really me,” he grits out. “Feeling… this.”

“Probably not,” Sam says.

Steve bangs his head back against the tile. It drives him _crazy_ to think that Bucky is out there somewhere, suffering, _alone._ They’ve both had _enough_ suffering alone.

“Well, if you can't get sick, he probably can't either. So it’s probably not a stomach bug, or infection, or anything like that.”

Steve grits his teeth. “Then what _is it?”_ he says.

“If had to guess? It’s probably some kind of withdrawal, from whatever Hydra had him on.”

Steve actually _growls,_ he’s so inarticulate with rage.

“And that’s _good news, Steve.”_

“How is that _good news?”_

“If Hydra had Barnes, they wouldn’t be letting him detox.”

Sam’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make Steve feel any better.

 

* * *

 

In a safe house in Baltimore, the Winter Soldier stops shaking, eventually, and drops into an exhausted slumber.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, Steve stops feeling like fried shit, which hopefully means that Bucky’s better.

Wherever he is.

Steve is so _angry_ that when they find a Hydra outpost a few days later, he takes it apart with his _bare hands._ Sam provides air support, and afterwards, he helps Steve clean and bandage his bloodied knuckles.

 

* * *

 

The Asset is in the Chair, leaning forward, waiting for the next stage of prep. He stares at nothing with eyes that are so blue, and so _blank._ The techs move behind him, indistinct shapes, masked and impersonal. They talk across him, over him.

“We’re go for soulmark removal. Cryobrand?” the lead tech says, irritable.

“Here,” says the second tech.

He comes into focus, holding a long metal rod. The flat bit at the end steams, like it’s very very hot — or very very cold. The tech is coming up behind the Asset. The Asset does not see, so how can he know that—

Right. Because the Asset is _looking at himself_ in the chair — but it isn’t — _himself,_ it’s —

“Let’s get this done. _Soldier,”_ the lead tech says, sharp and commanding. “Don’t move.”

Bucky’s arms and legs lock up. He can’t move; the command holds his limbs like the cuffs of the chair but it’s not _him_ in the fucking chair it’s—

_No._

_Steve_ is in the chair, his thin arms braced on the rests, loose in cuffs made for arms much bigger than his. His whole thin shape is dwarfed by the dark wings of the chair looming over him, the tech swathed in lab coat and surgical mask coming up behind him. He stares ahead with his narrow jaw set, those same blue eyes, but _empty—_

“Haven’t got all day,” the lead tech says.

The second tech presses in with the cryobrand, a sharp jab downward, the flat of it covering the spot between Steve’s shoulders. Bucky can _feel it,_ the numbness so sharp it _burns._

Stupidly, all Bucky can think is:

_But —_

(Steve’s whole narrow frame jerks forward involuntarily. “Ah!”)

_— it didn’t —_

(He can’t get away.)

_— happen like this..._

Steve screams, voice broken and ragged, fingers convulsing on the arms of the Chair, trying to hold still, trying so hard to be a good soldier — he always tried to be a good soldier —

_Not him._

Smoke rises from the place where they’re burning him — but it isn’t smoke. Tendrils coil over Steve’s shoulder, so dark red they’re almost black. There’s something under the cryobrand. It twists and reaches, curling its foul tentacles over Steve’s delicate shoulders, around his throat—

_NOT HIM._

“That’ll do,” the lead tech says. “Let’s move on.”

The brand lifts from Steve’s back. The creature on his back is free, crawling out from the place where his soulmark — _their_ soulmark — had been. The skull leers out from his back, it’s tentacles spreading like slick red tar. Steve tries to suck in a breath, but there’s a tentacle smothering him, another covering his eyes, another around his throat, around his shoulders. His fingers flex, helpless.

Bucky closes his eyes.

 _It didn’t happen to him,_ he prays. _It happened to me._

“Prep the chair,” the lead tech says.

_God please let it happen to me instead—_

 

In a safehouse in Baltimore, Bucky Barnes wakes up with a scream on his lips.

 

He cleans himself up and tries to figure out his next move. He’s weak from the detox, but his head is clear. He’s gotten rid of the trackers and clear of the handlers. He’s decided: No more violence. No more killing, not even to kill Hydra.

But if he comes in, what then?

And what about Steve?

He splashes water on his face, looks at his haggard reflection. The long hair, the scraggling beard, the shadowed eyes and sunken cheeks… he’s barely a shadow of who he used to be. He can barely remember his past. He’s got pieces, scraps of a tapestry, maybe half the story. But it’s still _their_ story. Steve has the other half, probably. They’re still soulmates, aren’t they?

He makes an abortive little reach, fingers twitching towards his shoulders — or the space between them.

 _Soulmates._ That was the first thing to come back, and it feels right, but it feels strange, too. He remembers finding out about their perfectly paired soulmarks as kids. Steve's mark changed (the nightmare looms close in Bucky's mind and he shudders) but the bond stayed strong — got stronger, in fact. He remembers that _now…_

But he also remembers quite a bit of the seventy years in between, when he was not permitted to have a mark, to be someone's soulmate. Now it feels like an old jacket, once familiar, but now strange and cold.

Soulmate. He clenches his fingers into a fist and lowers it.

Bucky's mouth twists mockingly at himself. What a fucking joke. The Fist of Hydra and Captain America. Soulmates. He doesn't deserve Steve — never had, but especially not now. Shame is thick in his throat and he bows his head.

But deeper than the shame, there is a thought that doesn't belong to the Asset. It is a Bucky thought that still comes through, clear and loud as anything. Even Hydra couldn't wipe it away. Like an old, stubborn weed it keeps coming back:

_Steve's the best thing in my life._

And the Asset is not accustomed to letting go without a fight. He takes a breath to steady himself.

For the first time since waking up, Bucky reaches back, tentatively. He reaches for the spot between his shoulder blades and feels—

Horror fills him like ice water.

“Oh fuck,” he whispers to his own reflection.

 

* * *

 

Steve first sees Sam’s mark in a hotel in Moscow, a few months into their little manhunt. Sam’s taking a shower while Steve combs through their intel on his laptop. Then, the shower shuts off and a moment later, Sam comes out, wearing just his jeans, and starts rummaging around in his bags, looking for something.

Steve happens to glance up and sees the mark splayed across Sam’s back, dark against his already dark skin. It almost looks like a bruise, except for the way the edges are so neat. Bluish colored. A star (which Steve had already expected, if he’s honest) but it’s flanked by what is, unmistakably, a pair of wings, sprayed out across his shoulder blades. It’s unusually large, for a mark. _Big mark, big heart,_ Bucky’s ma had always said. Though in his experience, that certainly wasn’t always the case.

Sam turns, and Steve doesn’t look away fast enough. Their eyes lock, and suddenly Sam scowls. “Ah _shit.”_ He yanks his shirt on over his head and goes back to the bathroom to finish getting ready.

And that… that isn’t like Sam at all.

But then — it’s not like things have changed as much as people think. Folk still get touchy about their soulmarks. Maybe Sam didn’t want to share that. Maybe Steve should’ve kept his eyes to himself. He can’t focus on his laptop after that. He closes it, and stares at his folded hands, and tries to think.

Sam comes out of the bathroom again a moment later, his shoulders hunched in, looking sheepish. He doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says at once. “I didn’t mean to… make you uncomfortable.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry. I just forgot you hadn’t seen it before. I forgot you didn’t know, and I… Hate explaining.”

“Explaining?” Steve says, confused.

Sam heaves a lengthy sigh and sinks onto the bed, letting his elbows fall on his knees, his hands dangling limply down between them. “It’s—”

“No,” Steve cuts in suddenly. “Wait. You don’t have to explain anything, just—”

It’s easier to show him, so Steve gets up and turns around and tugs his shirt up and halfway off, so it’s tangled across his biceps, and his back is bare. The star is bared.

Sam sucks in a breath.

Steve pulls his shirt back over his head and down, and turns to find Sam staring at him. “Jesus god,” he says.

“So you don’t have to explain,” Steve continues in a rush. “Cuz I know. I’ve known — I mean more or less known, not exactly known — for a while. Since I met you. I knew I could trust you.”

“I just figured you were a trusting dumbass,” Sam says.

“You’re not wrong,” Steve allows, thinking bitterly of an elevator full of men he’d once called colleagues. “But I have enhanced senses. And that includes the soulmate sense. So sometimes I just… know.”

“You don’t know it all,” Sam says. “The wings are a tattoo. The star is mine, but the wings were—that was—”

“Oh. Riley’s mark,” Steve says, understanding all in a rush.

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“He was your wingman.”

Sam looks wistful, a little wry. “Yeah.”

“He was more than your wingman, wasn’t he,” Steve says, with a horrible sense of foreboding.

Sam’s smile falls away and he swallows. “Yeah.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam, I…” Steve feels suddenly, overwhelmingly _guilty._ “Oh, Jesus.”

“Nah man, I know what you’re thinking, and stop,” Sam says. His mouth hitches up at the corner. “I’m glad for you. I’d kill for a second chance like the one you’re getting, but if anyone deserves a second chance, man, it’s you.”

 _“You_ deserve a second chance,” Steve says. “I don’t—”

“Man, shut the hell up,” Sam says. “Captain America is my best friend and my actual soulmate. I’m the luckiest damn fool alive.”

Steve’s heart feels like it’s about three seconds from detonation. “You might be soulmates with Natasha too,” he says. “But that’s classified.”

“You telling me I have a shot with the Black Widow?”

Steve makes an _ehhhhhh_ sound and wobbles his hand. “She’s probably out of your league.”

Sam beans him with a pillow.

 

* * *

 

After what he found in Baltimore, there’s no question of going back. So Bucky smuggles himself onto a cargo ship to Europe and plans how best to bury himself without actually dying. He’s not ready to do that; he’s not sure he can, anymore.

But Steve deserves better. Bucky needs to let him go.

 

* * *

 

Sam lets it rest there for a few days, but Steve should’ve known he wouldn’t let it lie. They’re in Prague, not enjoying the city like they should, but instead chasing down an old handler who defected back in the 70s. They’re staking out the guy’s apartment, which means that Steve is trapped in this car with no hope of escaping the inevitable conversation.

“So did they have DADT back in your day?”

“The... pesticide?” Steve asks.

Sam lets out a little burst of laughter. “The military policy, Steve. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Soulmates and gay couples — the military wouldn’t ask, and as long as you kept your head down, you wouldn’t get kicked out.”

“They banned soulmates from serving together?” Steve says, thinking of the Howlies. That exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. It wasn’t like people these days didn’t _know_ about…

“They tried to. A lotta Vietnam vets came back real messed up because they’d lost soulmates — even losing a platonic soulmate can really do a number on you, nevermind… well. You know.”

Steve _does_ know.

“Yeah,” Sam says, agreeing with whatever look is on Steve’s face. “After that, there was all this debate about it, what are the benefits, what are the downsides. There’s an argument to be made — exploiting soulmarks is banned by the Geneva Convention nowadays. And yeah, people who are soulmates fight better together, but doesn’t that count as exploitation? But realistically, the kinds of people who _join_ the army tend to find their soulmates _in_ the army. You know.”

Steve really, _really_ does.

“Yeah,” Sam says again. “So they tried, for a while, but in 2011 they kinda threw up their hands and said ‘forget it, do what you want.’”

“Oh yeah? When did you meet Riley?”

Sam smirks. “2009.” He elbows Steve. “What about you and Bucky? And the Howling Commandos too, I guess. What did the military have to say about that?”

“They didn’t say anything,” Steve says. “It was war and we were too valuable. Me and Bucky—” Steve swallows, thinking back to that mission in the Hürtgen Forest, the one where he took a bullet and Bucky had... “I think some people probably suspected, but no one talked about it. No one wanted Captain America blue carded.”

“For being gay?”

Steve sighs. Future people and their _labels._ “I’m bi, but that’s not really what we would’ve called it.”

“No, I guess not,” Sam allows. His brow is going all concerned again. “So… Bucky fell, you went into the ice—”

Steve winces, but Sam keeps talking.

“—And then you came out and started punching aliens.”

“That’s the job,” Steve says, with a little half smile.

“Right,” Sam says slowly. “But I never heard anything about you and Barnes until, well. Until _this_ complete shitshow.”

“Well, like I said, no one knew.”

“Steve…” Something is dawning for Sam. He shifts in his seat to face Steve more head on. “Did they get you any TSL Counseling?”

Steve sighs, irritated. “You know, I thought we liked acronyms back in my day, but you guys really put us to shame—”

“Traumatic Soulmate Loss, Steven.”

“Oh,” Steve says, stupidly. “They have counseling for that?”

“Yeah, they do. Jesus. They really didn’t help you at all, did they? When you got out.”

Steve feels the sudden ridiculous urge to defend them. It’s stupid, it’s _idiotic._ He remembers the psychologists, when he got out of the ice. He remembers trying to explain at first, and then giving up and just saying _fine. I’m fine._ But he’d never told anyone about Bucky. It had never even occurred to him as a possibility. “I didn’t tell them what was wrong,” he says.

Sam leans back a little, eyes wide and brows lifted. “Steve, you looked me in the eye and said you _didn’t know what made you happy._  They should not have had to _ask._ There are _resources_ for this shit. There are _support groups._ ”

“I don’t think I’d’a said yes if they’d offered.”

“They shouldn’t have offered, man, they should’ve ordered you.”

“I’m fine,” Steve says. “I _was_ fine.”

“Man, it is a real honor to be lied to by Captain America, I gotta tell you that.”

Steve huffs and glares at the door of the house they’re watching, willing it to explode or something, so he doesn’t have to take part in this conversation anymore. “I was _handling_ it,” he says.

“Ignoring it and handling it are two separate fucking things, Steve. Something tells me someone should tell your husband that too.”

Steve swallows but doesn’t bother to deny it. “Bucky was always better at handling things than I was.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky is not good at handling things. _Any_ things.

The _Asset_ could have handled this. But the Asset never had more than a few days’ worth of memories and he didn’t have much by way of emotional range.

Bucky, on the other hand, is burdened with seventy years of displacement and trauma and the sudden realization that everyone he knew is either dead or very old, and also he’s chin deep in a veritable ocean of blood that he spilled (albeit unwillingly.) And unlike the Asset, he is capable of feeling things about all of that.

And right now, on top of the toxic background radiation of guilt, his heart is pounding, palms sweaty like he’s back in Italy for the first time, fresh from boot camp and terrified.

He’s facing down the menu options at a fucking Starbucks in Edinburgh.

“Sir?” the barista says in a Scottish accent so thick it’s barely decipherable.

“I just want a small coffee,” he says, a little desperate.

The barista sighs heavily like he asked for something outrageous. “Tall Americano?” the barista garbles.

Bucky immediately thinks of a blonde man, face pulping under his metal fist and has to swallow the sudden urge to hork his guts all over this tiny Scottish encryption expert. “Whatever,” he croaks out. “That’s fine.”

“Name?” the barista says. She pronounces it _neem._

A little bubble of hysteria escapes his mouth.

The barista raises both brows, expectant.

“J-james,” he says, at last.

The cloud-like soulmark on the barista's forehead lifts along with her eyebrow. “Ye sure abou’ tha’?” she snarks. 

“Nope,” Bucky confirms, and throws money at her. He waits for his coffee at the end of the bar and tries to convince himself that he can, in fact, handle this.

He gets his drink a few minutes later. He cradles it close to his chest and beats feet out of the Starbucks, seeking a more defensible position. He can handle this. He can.

He sips his coffee. _Tall Americano._ Christ, he misses Steve. He misses Steve every minute of every day, and he can handle it, he _can..._

But he still pulls out his phone and starts googling prices to get from from the UK to New York. Just to see.

By the time he’s dropping his empty cup in a recycling bin, he’s got tickets.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vii - kuma: at last**

_“Emotions and senses can be explained by biochemistry. There’s nothing supernatural about the rods and cones in our eyes, or the way serotonin interacts with our brains. Soulmarks are just the same. They can be changed by biochemistry, they’re the result of biochemistry. Soulmates are just as real as the world we see and the way we feel. That doesn’t make them any less magical.”_

_\- Bill Nye_

 

 

 

Steve starts quietly consulting experts on the science and study of soulmarks and soulmates. He avoids _anesignologists,_ the kind of touchy-feely new-age-y types who read soulmarks the way fortune tellers read tea leaves. Soulmarks are a natural phenomenon (according to Stark and Banner) with scientifically measurable effects.

For example, it turns out that absence really does make the heart grow fonder in a very literal way. The receptors for the pheromones and electrical signals that go hand in hand with the Mate Pain Response become more sensitive with deprivation, the way hunger makes everything taste stronger and better.

Dr. Cho gives an apologetic little wince and says: “In terms of brain chemistry, it’s actually functionally quite similar to addiction.”

Steve already knew that, but it’s nice to have it confirmed.

He goes to the Tower and gets an fMRI. Whatever Dr. Cho sees there makes her so excited that she starts talking in rapid fire Korean with one of her colleagues from her home lab. Bruce (who wandered in to consult on serum side effects) joins in. His Korean is a little stuttering and slow, but JARVIS fills in the gaps.

Steve can’t quite stop staring at Bruce’s marks — he has greenish marks that slither and swirl across his hands. A while ago, Steve asked about them, and Bruce said that he thought they were auroras: the polar lights created by radiation — like gamma radiation — bouncing off the magnetosphere. When he turns into the Hulk, the green spreads to cover every inch of him (which is why Steve had asked in the first place, wanting to know more about the angriest Avenger.)

Steve wonders whether Bruce has any soulmates. He thinks about a night sky, the kind of sky where you might see an aurora. The kind of sky where you would definitely see stars. He thinks about how quickly the Hulk listened to him and finds himself wondering…

Bruce explains that while Steve’s brain might _look_ normal, it doesn’t _work_ normally. The areas responsible for sensory perception are particularly active, lit up like a Christmas tree. Steve can smell that Tony (who's just there to run the machines and commentate) had an everything bagel for breakfast three hours ago.

So Steve already knew that. But it’s nice to have it confirmed.

Does that enhanced perception include the soulmate sense? Yes, it does.

So what Steve really wants to know is if anyone has developed a way to weaponize that shit. Dr. Cho looks horrified by the suggestion — exploitation of soulmark connections is strictly banned by the Geneva Convention, but Tony just looks tired and pulls out his phone.

Twenty minutes later, Steve has an app — _an app_ — that links with some Starktech in his phone, reading electrical signals or something.

“All it can do is tell you if he’s close by,” Tony says. “Like a proximity alert. It’ll send you a notification if he’s less than a mile away. You know what a notification is, right?”

“I know what a notification is,” Steve says.

 

Steve starts getting notifications about twice a day.  Sometimes the notifications will go away for as long as a week, but they always come back. It’s a kind of torture, but it’s also a relief. Bucky’s here. He’s orbiting close, just out of sight.

Steve, who can feel the constant tug in his chest like a string pulling on his ribs, already knew that. But it’s nice to have it confirmed.

Sort of.

 

* * *

 

Being in New York again wakes something up in Bucky. He finds himself shouting back at taxi drivers. He develops preferences about who has the best hot dogs. He starts _smiling_ at baristas instead of going into dead-eyed panic states.

He still does obsessive perimeter sweeps and only sleeps for a few hours every other day, but part of him at least registers that it’s a problem. That’s progress.

He haunts Steve like a ghost. He tries to limit himself, to keep it down to once or twice a week, to be patient and stay away. But he can’t resist catching a glimpse of blond on the street, or setting up a scope to watch Steve chatting with his friends on the balconies at Stark Tower.

 

* * *

 

“Friend Steven,” Thor says, clapping Steve heartily on the shoulder. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Steve figures there’s no polite way to ask this, which is why he pulled Thor aside at a party after three glasses of Asgardian Mead. Anyone who says that bravery doesn’t come in bottles hasn’t tried that stuff. “You all got soulmarks in space?”

Thor’s face positively lights up. “Why yes, we—” but then he visibly stops himself. He looks like he’s just internally tripped over the carpet. “But my Lady Jane tells me that it’s not discussed in polite company?” he adds warily. “Is that not the custom here?”

“It is. I ain’t very polite just now.”

His phone hasn’t buzzed with a Bucky notification in two weeks.

“Ah! Excellent!” Thor declares. “Well. I have visited many worlds, and known many strange people, but nigh every race with empathy bears their own version of what you call the soul mark.”

“But not all?” Steve asks, sidetracked by his own curiosity. He wonders, a little, what it would be like to be free of the mark, to live his own life without being shackled to…

But he imagines it would be a hell of a lonely way to live.

“Not all,” Thor confirms. “There are strange worlds that lack soulsense. They usually manage to bumble along more or less fine. If you ask me, it skews the priorities. But then…” Thor chuckles. “Perhaps it is our priorities that are skewed. Who are we to say?”

“But they’re the same?” Steve asks. “I mean, no matter where you are in the universe, there’s folks walking around with marks on their skin, like—”

“Many do. We Asgardians perceive soulmarks much the way you do. Here.” He pulls up his sleeves to show his forearms, the part usually covered by his bracers.

Bright blue marks — brighter and sharper edged than any human soulmark — crawl under the skin of Thor's meaty arms. As Steve watches, they _move_ , crackling along like real lightning, but in slow motion. It's uncanny. It's alien. Sometimes Steve forgets that Thor is an alien, not just an entire Ren Faire with amazing biceps.

Thor pulls his sleeves down and shrugs. “But among, say, the dwarves of Nidavellir, where hearing is the more acute sense, they perceive it as a sound, a signature vibrational pitch.” Thor cocks his head. “But… What makes you ask?”

Steve clears his throat. “I was just wondering if Asgardians had a way to track down soulmates,” Steve says, as casually as possible. “You know. Like. Some kind of soulmate bloodhound or something.”

“Ah,” Thor says, with far too much understanding, all of a sudden. “This is about your friend. The one who came back. Stark mentioned that he gave you a... _proximity detector—”_ (he pronounces it the way Steve would pronounce 'Nidavellir’) “—that he developed?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I was just thinking that maybe Asgardians had something more precise.” He waves the mead glass vaguely. “You know?”

“I do,” Thor says gravely. “But Steven… Surely, this friend of yours would not stay away without good reason. And you…” he pats Steve's chest with a hand the size of a toddler's face. “You are a good man. Would you truly wish to force his hand like that?”

“I’m just concerned about his safety. Hydra’s after him, and—”

“It is not like you to lie, my friend.” Thor’s expression is gentle, kind, but also reproachful.

Steve shuts his mouth. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Thor is an alien. And sometimes it's easy to forget that he's over a thousand years old. When he's shoveling waffles into his mouth like a human trash compactor and chugging beer like a frat bro it's easy to forget that he's a literal god, but at times like this, Steve remembers how _young_ he is, compared to this guy.

“I hope you know that you can tell me the truth. I am in no position to judge anyone. I know well how hard it can be to lose a soulmate. And I am not proud of all I have done in that regard.”

Steve’s not sure whether Thor is talking about Jane or Loki or someone else entirely, but he doesn’t want to press, not when he’s already been an ass. “I’m sorry,” Steve says. “Ask me again.”

Thor smiles, a little sadly. “If he is not ready to see you, would you truly force him to?”

“Yeah, I absolutely would,” Steve confesses, without hesitation. “I got no idea how to keep my distance from Bucky. Never have.”

“Then I think you know my answer. But it matters little. All those powers are vested in Heimdall. He could find your Bucky, easily enough, but he will not. That law he will not break, not for gods or men.”

“Well it’s a good thing, then,” Steve says frankly. “He’s a stronger fella than I am.” And he swallows down the rest of the mead.

Thor’s big kind face gets all crumpled up in sympathy. He drapes one labrador-sized arm over Steve’s shoulders. “Come, friend Steven. Let us drink more mead than is wise and sing sad songs of lost loves. I know the whole of the Laxdaela Saga, and truly you have not lived until you have heard Stark’s rendition of _My Baby Shot Me Down._ You will join us, and sing!”

“Well I do know all the words to _I’ll Be Seeing You,_ but I’m pretty tone deaf.”

Thor tips more mead into Steve’s glass. “That matters very little, my friend.”

 

Steve is, in fact, warbling his way through _I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you_ when his phone buzzes against his hip.

Bucky’s back in range.

 

* * *

 

At a gala in DC, Bucky finally sees all the Avengers in a room together. Bucky himself is in a hideously ill-fitted shirt, bowtie and vest. The white gloves that all the waitstaff wear provide perfect cover for his hand, and he’s got himself a full beard and put a touch of grey in his hair. Combined with the glasses, he’s invisible.

Steve looks great. Well, he looks about ready to crawl out of his skin, surrounded by schmoozers and senators, but he looks _amazing_ in that tux.

Nat hovers at his elbow, doubtless whispering snide comments in his ear, and Sam isn’t far away, looking at least as good as Steve, and much less uncomfortable.

They’re soulmates, Bucky thinks with a pang. Or at least, the potential is there. He can see it plain as day: the easy familiarity Steve has with them is instantly recognizable. Steve smiles at them the way he did with the Howlies.

Actually, the more Bucky watches (delivering flutes of champagne on the other side of the room) the more he thinks… Steve’s like that with all of them. All the Avengers. Even Stark’s kid. Something drops out of Steve’s shoulders when he sees one of them. A mask is drawn back, and _Steve_ shines through.

It comes back to Bucky then, the words blooming in his mind along with the memory.

_Any one of the Howlies is as compatible as me._

It’s as true of the Avengers now as it was of the Howlies then, Bucky thinks. Even if Steve doesn’t see it yet, he’s swimming in soulmate potential. He’s surrounded by it. Any one of the Avengers could be a soulmate — _definitely_ Sam. Bucky knows (or the Asset knew) that Natasha would be a fit for them both.

Bucky thinks back to what he discovered, almost a year ago now, in that safe house in Baltimore. The truth burns between his shoulder blades. He needs to let Steve go, _really_ let Steve go. Steve’s got his team, he’s got the Avengers. _They_ could give Steve what he deserves, they could—

 _Fuck what I deserve. I don’t want it. I want_ you.

Bucky ducks out of the function, leaving his tray of champagne flutes abandoned on a side table.

 

* * *

 

Steve basically lives in Sam’s guest room when he isn’t on mission or staying at the Tower. He keeps trying to pay rent or something, but Sam won’t take it. Sam says he can stay as long as he needs, but he’s got to find his own place, eventually. Steve can’t imagine settling down anywhere. How is he supposed to buy a house, buy furniture, settle in, _without Bucky?_

And then, on a perfectly ordinary Sunday in late April, when Sam is out of town for a reunion with his air force buddies, Steve comes back to Sam’s condo and there’s Bucky.

He’s washing the dishes in Sam’s sink.

“Hey pal,” Bucky says, without looking up.

Steve stands in the doorway to the kitchen and stares. Bucky’s wearing a red henley with the sleeves pushed up. There’s a jacket and hoodie and a ballcap hanging off the back of one of Sam’s kitchen chairs, and a duffel bag beside it. Six knives are neatly laid out on the table, where Steve can clearly see them. Water sloshes as Bucky rinses a plate and sets it in the drying rack.

“Don’t know why you can’t just wash ‘em when you use ‘em. S’like you got some kinda complex.”

“Bucky,” Steve breathes.

Bucky’s throat works. “That’s what they call me.”

 _“Bucky.”_ Steve’s still rooted to the spot.

“You know I was in Bucharest for a while,” Bucky says. His voice is quiet. Subdued. “Can’t seem to stay away. I’m buying plums at the Râmnicu Sărat and thinking _Steve would like these._ And I don’t remember _why_ I think that, but maybe it’s got something to do with oranges?” He sets the last dish in the drying rack and reaches for a towel, wiping his hands. The metal one shines, water beading on the plates. “Guess I got my own kinda complex.”

“Fresh fruit,” Steve says. He’d give the memory if he could, whole and intact. He’d shove it directly into Bucky’s brain, but they’re not actually telepathic. Right now all he’s got are the words. “The doctors always wanted me to eat more fresh fruit, but it was hard to come by. Expensive.” He swallows. “Why Bucharest?” As far as he knows, Hydra’s Asset never had a mission in Bucharest. Maybe that was the point.

Bucky shrugs. “Romania’s nice.”

“But you came back.”

“I never stayed away long,” Bucky says, swiping the towel over his shiny forearm.

“I know,” Steve says. “You remember me?”

“You know I do.” Bucky chews the inside of his lip. “But you gotta know, pal. I ain’t him.”

“Yes you are,” Steve says.

“No, I’m _not.”_ Bucky glares. “The guy you knew. The guy you…”

 _The guy I what?_ Steve thinks, vicious and hysterical inside his own head if nowhere else. _Just say it, you bastard. Say it._

Bucky clears his throat. “He’s gone. I’m just… what’s left.”

“I’ll take it,” Steve says immediately.

Bucky sighs heavily and closes his eyes. “You idiot.”

“Let me help you,” Steve says. He thinks, vaguely, that Sam would be telling him to respect boundaries, take it easy. But Steve and Bucky haven't had boundaries since 1936, and Steve wouldn't know _easy_ if it slapped him on the ass and called him sweetheart.

“I don’t need help,” Bucky says, but it's a thin excuse and Steve sees right through it.

 _“Yes, you do.”_ Steve takes another step towards Bucky. “I’m not the only one who’s been looking for you, Bucky. Most of them ain’t interested in taking you alive.”

“That’s smart,” Bucky says, taking a half step away as Steve comes closer. “Good strategy.”

Steve takes another step, putting himself between Bucky and the door. He’ll tackle Bucky to the ground if he has to. He’s not letting Bucky go without a fight. “When you pulled me outta the river. You said you didn’t know you.”

Bucky’s jaw goes tight, and Steve sees him look at the door behind Steve, then the window over the sink. Exits.

 _“I_ know you,” Steve says. “Bucky. Let me help.”

Bucky closes his eyes and swallows. Steve can hear his throat click, can sense how nervous Bucky is, can feel the shame like it’s his own. “Why d’you think I came here, punk?”

Steve feels his lips making a smile. He takes another step closer. He’s almost in arm’s reach now. “Thought you said you didn’t need help, tough guy.”

“Yeah, well, I lied. I do that.”

“What, you? Lie? Surely not.”

That would have gotten at least a chuckle in the old days, but now it barely gets a smile. Steve wants to hold him so bad that the wanting has set up permanent residence in his chest. It's got a mortgage and three kids by now. Bucky looks wrecked, exhausted, now that Steve's looking. And boy is Steve looking. He may never look at anything else ever again.

“Jesus Christ, Buck,” Steve breathes. “I missed you. How ya been?”

“Oh. You know. I, uh…” and Bucky blinks fast, like he's trying not to cry all of a sudden. “Been worse. Been better.”

Steve’s smile is barely a smile at all. “Join the club, pal.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner,” Bucky says in a rush. “I didn’t know _anything,_ and I didn’t trust _anyone._ I needed — everything was all jumbled up in my head, and there were people after me, and sometimes you’re a — a goddamn force of nature. But in my head, you’re — you’re—”

“Just a little guy?” Steve says quietly.

Bucky shakes his head. “No. I mean, I know you were, back then, I remember some. But I meant you're… Breakable. Hard on the outside, but like ice. Brittle. I been so damn scared I'd break you.”

Steve feels breakable. He feels on the verge of shattering. He's felt closer every day they've been apart. He tries to think how to say that. _I missed you_ doesn't really cut it. _I feel crazy without you_ is closer. But all Steve can manage is to stare at Bucky, wide eyed.

Whatever Bucky sees in Steve's face makes him nod. “Yeah.” He says it like Steve just agreed with him instead of staring like a hopeless lovesick teen. “So I'm thinking maybe we can help each other?”

“Yeah.”

“Cuz I don’t know how to do this without ya.”

“We don’t have to, right?” Steve says, a little desperately.

“Maybe not?” There's hope in Bucky's voice, half buried and soft, but...

“Bucky,” Steve begs. _“Please_ can I—”

Bucky closes the space between them and wraps his arms around Steve, tight, one arm hooked over his shoulder, palm pressed between his shoulder blades, and Steve clutches the back of Bucky’s henley, presses his fist there, and feels Bucky let out a short, sharp breath as the connection lights up between them again. It’s just as intense as the first day it happened, all those years ago when they were just a coupla dumb kids.

For a moment they just stand there, the two of them hanging on for dear life as their connection — too long denied — howls in triumph. They rock a little, and breathe, and just feel the ebb and flow between them. It's like their bond has been starving, and now it's feasting. Steve's seen hungry dogs descend on bowls of kibble — this feels the way that looked.

“There’s something I gotta tell you,” Bucky whispers.

“Is it about all the people Hydra made you shoot? Cuz I already know all about that.”

Bucky pinches him in the side in punishment, and Steve twitches away instinctively, laughing a little. “I’m serious, punk.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Steve pulls  back but keeps his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. “But first, are you hungry? You need anything?”

“Need you to stop fussing,” Bucky grumbles, and grabs one of Steve’s hands with his flesh one. He gives it a reassuring little squeeze and then pulls Steve towards the door to the guest room. “C’mon.”

In the guest room, Bucky's fingers side reluctantly out of his. Steve's hand stays reached out, twitching a little like it wants to make grabby fingers. It probably looks real dumb, but Steve doesn't seem to have much say in the matter. His insides are making sad puppy sounds, but Bucky is turned away from him. Bucky flicks on the light with his metal fingers and then reaches around to grab the back of his henley. Steve just stands there as Bucky tugs the red shirt off, and then, more hesitantly, the black undershirt too. His bun comes out of the neckhole a little more mussed than before and—

“Oh my god,” Steve says.

Bucky’s shoulders hunch in, away from Steve, just a little. One is covered in metal, the plates shifting and clicking, tugging at the scars that have formed at the join. The other shoulder is still flesh, the skin smooth and soft and unscarred.

Between them, his soulmark is _red._ Filled in, the way Steve’s had when he got the serum, but red like the star on his arm, like—

“I don’t remember when it happened.” The words come in short, quick bursts, like machine gun fire. “I got… flashes, from before. But they’re mostly you. I know it didn’t used to look like that, but I don’t—” he takes a sharp breath. “Coulda been Zola, coulda been after that. Coulda been — they used to… Burn it off.” One of them makes a small, hurt sound, and Steve honestly isn’t sure which. “It always came back, cuz of the serum. But it mighta come back... _different.”_ Steve can almost taste the word Bucky didn’t say. _Wrong._ “I just, I don’t _know,_ and—” Bucky’s shaking a little. “I keep thinking of the fuckin’ — _Red Skull,_ and—”

Steve steps forward, touches the mark gently with his fingers. It’s a little raised, like his, but that color. That bright red color. Bucky shudders under his hands, head tipping back. “Feels the same?” Steve asks, quietly.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes.

Steve doesn’t know if Bucky remembers _this,_ but he does, so he tugs Bucky around, pushes him back to sit on the bed, and climbs into his lap, straddling him. He hooks his arms over Bucky’s shoulders, stroking the star on his back, and presses his forehead to Bucky’s.

“Some things change,” Steve tells him. “But this? It’s just the same.”

“Have we—” Bucky looks like he might be remembering.

Steve grins. “Only difference is now no one’s gonna arrest us. Well. Not for this.”

Bucky kisses him. More accurately: Bucky tries to _devour him,_ and before Steve knows what’s what, Bucky’s metal arm has clamped around his waist, and he’s rolled them. Steve is pressed back against the bed, and Bucky is covering him, already starting to shift his hips in a very purposeful way and—

“Wait, Bucky we can't,” Steve gasps.

“Why the hell not?” Bucky grumbles, mouth still half pressed against Steve’s skin. “Ain’t we waited long enough?”

“This ain't—” Steve gasps, and his brain whites out a little but all he can think is that these aren't even his sheets and he feels guilty enough sleeping in them. “I don't _live_ here, Buck,” he gasps.

Bucky pulls back, frowning down at him. “Whaddya mean? You sleep here whenever you're in town.”

Steve blinks. Bucky really has been watching him, Jesus. “What, have you been hiding in the bushes?”

“Only on Tuesdays. Answer the question.”

Steve sighs. “I'm a _guest._ Sam won't let me help with the rent, so.”

Bucky's face contorts. “What about Stark’s place? You pay him rent?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Pal. Are you telling me… that you're technically homeless?”

Steve suddenly realizes that that is… accurate, actually. “I… yes?”

“Oh my God we really are a mess. Fuck.” He kisses Steve again, but softer this time. “Okay. No fooling around in Wilson’s sheets, you absolute prude, but we’re going apartment hunting, like. _Tomorrow morning._ First thing.”

Steve ignores the prude comment because, well… “You asking me to move in with you, Barnes?”

“Oh like we ain’t done that before.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yes, Steven, I am asking you to move in with me.”

Steve lets out a weak chuckle. “Okay.” Then a thought occurs to him, a giddy bubble of a thought that comes out of nowhere. He nudges Bucky’s side. “Hey. There’s something I gotta tell you, too.”

Bucky narrows his eyes, suspicious.

Steve puts on his best Captain America Serious Business face. “Probably no one warned you about this when you woke up, because sure as hell no one warned _me,_ but…” He takes a deep breath. “... _boner_ and _solid dick_ mean something _very different_ n—”

He’s cut off by Bucky beaning him in the face with a pillow.

 

* * *

 

For all Steve’s red-faced embarrassment about fooling around in someone else’s bed, he has trouble keeping his hands off Bucky. And Bucky ain’t really trying all that hard to keep his hands off Steve, because he doesn’t give a shit.

“Hey. Greatest tactical mind of his generation,” Bucky says into the back of Steve’s neck, snugged right up against that broad back, his hands — metal and flesh — gripping that narrow waist.

“Unh?” Steve says. His head is tipped forward so far that the top of his soulmark is tugged a little upwards.

Bucky presses a tender kiss to the topmost point and Steve shivers all over. “What about... the shower?”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath. “Bucky, you’re a genius.”

 

After the shower, and the cleanup from the shower, and the fretting over how hard it will be to repair the tile Steve cracked throwing his head back a little too hard, they stumble into bed considerably more ready to actually sleep.

Bucky tucks his flesh arm under the pillow and Steve slides in behind him. Bucky sighs happily. He’s just about to drift off when the plates on his left shoulder register light pressure.

He comes back awake fully. He can hear Steve breathing softly, can practically feel Steve’s curiosity. He imagines it like a squirming puppy who wants to know why its human is upset. Poking its nose in, meaning well.

“They put it on your arm,” Steve says, but it’s a question. “They took it off your back, but they put it on your arm, where everyone could see it.”

Bucky hunches his shoulders in a little. “They put it on your uniform,” he points out, and feels Steve go still. He even holds his breath for a moment, shocked.

Then he lets out a gust against the back of Bucky’s neck and he can hear the whisper of Steve shaking his head against his pillow. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” Bucky asks, and feels Steve shifting behind him.

Steve doesn’t say anything, and Bucky knows that it’s because he’s right.

He knows how much it bothers Steve, how much it _must_ bother Steve. It’s not just them being old-fashioned. Soulmarks are _personal._ They’re the _most personal_ thing. Him and Steve, neither of them _chose_ to change their marks, or share their marks. Steve was pushed out onto that stage — everyone who so much as looked at him knew what his mark was, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. And Bucky... For a long time, Bucky didn’t even know what his mark was, but his handlers did. Everyone he killed did, even if they didn’t realize it.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just curls his arm around Bucky’s waist and then curls his whole body in like he wants to wrap himself around Bucky and never let him go. Bucky pulls Steve’s arm up to his chest and lets Steve hold onto him in a whole-body kind of way. “Yeah, I got you,” Bucky says, mindlessly, and they drift off to sleep like that.

 

In the morning, instead of going apartment hunting, they’re both woken by the sound of the Avengers Assemble alert on Steve’s phone. There’s something going down in Sokovia. Something Hydra related, or Bucky’s sure Steve would tell them to take a damn number and wait.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, for the millionth time, grabbing the last of his gear. He’s got to meet Natasha at the airfield in twenty minutes.

Bucky tugs at the cuffs of the henley he wore yesterday, looking at his mismatched hands. He hasn’t hurt anyone since he left DC after the helicarriers, but… “I could… help?” he offers, and looks up.

Steve is smiling at him, looking about twelve feet tall in his red-white-and-blue. He’s a real hero. He tucks his helmet under his arm and reaches out, puts his hand on Bucky's cheek. Bucky leans into it. Steve’s voice is a rumble, more felt than heard. “Nah, I got this. Your war is over, pal.”

Bucky stares at him. “What about yours?”

Steve swallows and his expression falls. It's like he shrinks right in front of Bucky’s eyes, turning back into himself. Bucky can read the hesitation, the unwillingness there.

Steve opens his mouth, but Bucky’s already shaking his head, dislodging Steve’s hand. “Nah, forget I asked, I didn't mean—”

Steve grabs Bucky's hands, metal and flesh. The plates register heat and pressure, Steve’s grip tightening. “Soon, I think,” Steve says. “I hope.”

He kisses Bucky, softly. Bucky leans into it, just a little. Then a little more, trailing after the kiss when Steve pulls back.

“Will you be here when I get back?” Steve asks.

Bucky nods. “I’ll scare the shit outta Wilson. We’ll catch the whole thing on the TV. So don’t do anything stupid, alright? I’m watching this time. I’ll _know.”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter coming next Sunday! Thanks to WhiskersTheMouse for betaing and also nightmaresinwintah for betaing parts of this chapter in particular, which was a Hot Mess for a Long Time.
> 
> [There's a comic for this chapter!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901206) We didn't embed it because verbalatte thought it might be repetitive, but you should all know that Bucky's dream sequence is her baby because she's a genius. An evil genius, but a genius nonetheless. She took one throwaway mention in one scene and turned it into one of my favorite sequences in the chapter.


	3. barycenter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Add tags: Civil War Fix-it, Infinity War Fix-it, A Wild Killmonger Appears ;)

## barycenter

n. The center of mass of two or more bodies that orbit each other; the point around which those two bodies orbit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

###  **i - sagitta: the arrow**

_**Unpublished Anonymous Interview from 3 March 2052** _

_This telling the truth thing is a real lark, isn’t it? Do you get little tinglies when you tell the truth? It’s just I do it so rarely._

_So the city is flying and there’s a very real possibility of global extinction. Tony’s plan to save the world is going to kill the rest of us. And then Cap says to me — did you know he’s from Brooklyn? Normally he’s got this non-accenty radio announcer accent but this time Cap says to me:_

_“None’a youse is dyin’ today. Not on my fuckin watch. I gotta soulmate down there waiting for me to come home and so do you.”_

_And he had this look, like he was about three seconds from eating the shield. I’ve never seen someone more determined to survive. He was so — changed. From when I first met him, I mean. Whatever truth there is behind the soulmate thing, it sure does give you a reason to live. And he was right. I did have soulmates to come home to. Did I tell you about that? Hang on, let me go back a bit. So we’re at the farm..._

 

 

 

Clint has a big yellow dog called Lucky. The dog has one eye permanently closed, so he looks like he’s perpetually winking. And there’s a white blaze on his chest, shaped roughly like an arrow.

“He’s my soulmate,” Clint says, completely deadpan.

“He’s _my_ soulmate,” Laura says, from the kitchen area of the Barton’s farmhouse. (Her mark, Steve will find out later, is a bulls-eye on her inner wrist, and a perfect match to the arrow on Clint’s inner wrist.)

“He’s _our_ soulmate!” say the two kids as they go running past.

“You’re all wrong,” Natasha says. She’s finally come down from whatever the Sokovian girl did to her, but she’s still pale, and she’s leaning against Clint, sitting on the sofa. “Lucky is _my_ soulmate, and none of you can prove otherwise.”

Clint is rubbing her back, right over where Steve knows her soulmark was. She must have told him about it. She relaxes into the touch the way Bucky used to relax into Steve's touch — and will again, God willing.

Then Laura comes in with sandwiches for everyone. As she passes, she brushes a hand over Clint’s, trailing up into Nat’s hair a little. Nat closes her eyes and leans into _her_ touch too, ever so slightly.

Huh.

Steve notices. Tony notices. Tony notices Steve noticing and stares hard at him, like he’s waiting for Steve to make a fuss about it, or be scandalized. Like polyamory was invented in the 21st century. Like it didn’t exist just because they didn’t have a nice, clean, sanitized word for it before. Like Steve’s going to be angry or offended. Jesus. Nat’s had the hardest life of anyone Steve’s ever met, and that’s saying something. She deserves all the happiness the world can give her. Steve hopes that she can make things work with Bruce too, with _Sam,_ if that’s what she wants. He hopes Nat keeps going out there, grabbing happiness with both hands, and never, ever stops.

Lucky whuffs happily and rolls onto his back for no obvious reason.

 

* * *

 

Bucky is stress cleaning. If a forensic team came through right now, they probably wouldn’t be able to find any fingerprints.

A few hours ago he woke up in a cold sweat, his head full of a confused nightmare about a dancehall — or a dance studio maybe. There had been the whistle and scream of mortarfire in his head — the sharp retort of a pistol in his hand, and then—

He hadn’t been able to get back to sleep, trying to sort through the emotions in his chest. How much was his own anxiety? How much was Steve? What the hell was going on? He got up and turned on the news, but there was nothing. Nothing _yet._

An hour later, he’d gotten a text from Steve:

_On Quinjet. All safe. Going to regroup. Will call later._

When the news started showing footage of the Hulk tearing apart Johannesburg, Bucky figured he knew more or less why Steve said “safe” instead of “OK.”

Hence the cleaning spree. Bucky likes cleaning. Cleaning is soothing. Defined task, with sub goals and strategy and no one bleeds. And yeah, it doesn’t take a genius psychologist to figure out why he might have an affinity for tasks that create literal clean slates. But if the zen-like feeling of peace he gets bleeds through into Steve, well that’s not nothing.

When his phone rings, he doesn’t even have to look to know that it’s Steve. He taps the speakerphone and without stopping what he’s doing (cleaning the stove), he says: “Hey. You OK?”

The beat of silence that follows goes on a microsecond too long. “So he _did_ find you,” says a woman’s voice.

Bucky’s head snaps up. In his head, he’s seeing a little girl, thirteen and slim and deadly as a stiletto. “Natalia?”

A sigh. “If _anyone_ has the right to call me Natasha…”

He’d called her _Natashenka_ more than once, like she really was his daughter, not just his pupil. They’d punished him every time. Bucky leans over to look at the phone where it’s sitting out on the counter. Steve’s number is lit up there. “You stole Steve’s phone?”

“Of course,” she says, flippant. “He just stomped off into the woods so he could call you all sneaky-like. I figure I’ve got about ten minutes before he figures out I’ve got it.” There’s a soft sound in the background, like she’s flopping back on a bed. “You ruined an interrogation, you know.”

Bucky goes back to scrubbing the stove and frowns. “Did I?”

“Yeah. So I’ve got a little HYDRA weasel under my boot, and he was just giving up the location of that base we hit in Sokovia. I’m thinking I can get more, maybe figure out what experiments they’ve got running and suddenly I get the goddamn _giggles.”_

Bucky wrinkles his nose and pauses in the midst of scrubbing at the rangetop. “The giggles? You?”

“Not _my_ giggles. I don’t have this problem with any of my other soulmates.”

Bucky barks out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s just Steve. He projects his emotions like crazy, the big sap. Superserum made it worse.”

“You got the serum, I never got anything like this from you.”

Bucky puts down his scrub brush. “Yeah, I’ve got better self control. You have other soulmates?” he asks.

“I do,” Natasha says, and provides no further details for a long moment, like she’s debating how much is safe to reveal.  “They... take care of me.”

He can hear that it costs her something to admit that, and that she’s trying to say something else. Something harder to say. He cocks his head and tries to sort through the tightness in his chest. How much of it is his own? How much of it is Steve? How much is Natalia?

“Are _you_ OK?” Bucky asks, picking up the phone.

Natalia takes a measured breath. “I’ve been better,” she says.

Bucky turns off speakerphone and presses it to his ear. “Tell me,” he says.

She does.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **ii - regulus, or cor leonis: prince, or the heart of the lion**

_Have you ever met a soulmate that wasn’t quite a soulmate? Like, an almost-mate? It’s not the same as a NOPE-mate — those people you instinctively hate on sight — it’s something else. It’s like looking out the window of a train and making eye contact with someone going the other way. A could-have-been._

_misssoulmarks. "Near Miss Soulmates." Your Soulmark Agony Aunt. Last modified November 4, 2012._

 

 

 

Tony hardly ever takes his shirt off.

Steve had always figured that there was scarring, and he was self conscious about it. But when they’re chopping wood outside of Clint’s farmhouse, Tony peels off his shirt and Steve sees, for the first time, what Tony Stark is _really_ self conscious about.

His soulmark is a literal black stain, like an oil spill. And it’s _huge._ It covers his whole chest, spills down his shoulders and over his biceps before fading out above his elbows and just up from his hipbones. The arc reactor (it's not keeping him alive anymore, but he says “where else am I gonna put it?” when anyone asks about it) looks like the light you see from the bottom of a well. Or maybe like the last hot coal in the middle of a burned out fire pit.

Tony glares sharply at Steve when he notices Steve noticing that.

There are a lot of superstitions about soulmarks. _Big mark, big heart,_ Bucky's ma had always said, but then the Red Skull’s mark had covered every inch of him, hadn’t it. And there had been that serial killer with the great big black stains on his hands, in the 70s.

Tony is obviously shy about it. The size, the strangely menacing look…

Steve goes back to chopping wood. It’s none of his business.

 

* * *

 

The sound of the key in the lock makes Bucky jump. It’s only been 24 hours since Sokovia fell from the sky. Steve’s still doing cleanup, so who—

“What the—”

Bucky pokes his head into the living room and finds the Falcon staring at the stovetop, which is so clean you can see your face in it.

“Hey,” Bucky says softly.

Sam’s head whips around and his eyebrows do a complicated little dance. “When Steve said you’d been cleaning up his messes since 1930, I didn’t think he meant _literally.”_

“How do you know this isn’t HYDRA training?” Bucky shoots back, then kind of wishes he could snatch the statement out of the air. Is it too early to joke about that? He barely knows Wilson — tangential stalking while he was following Steve probably doesn’t count.

The complicated eyebrow dance resolves into a look of startled bemusement. Then his eyes narrow a fraction, an expression remarkably similar to Steve’s _testing the waters_ face. “The Winter Soldier: cleaning up your mess while he _cleans up your mess?”_

“Since 1945. I’m a full service assassin,” Bucky confirms. “Extremely thorough.”

Sam chokes a little. “OK, OK, I gotcha.” He cocks his head. “We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Sam.”

Bucky’s a little relieved that Sam doesn’t hold out his hand, but he knows the guy works with vets. Maybe he can spot a guy who  isn’t wild about physical contact from strangers. “Nice to meetcha. James Barnes. Call me Bucky. You hungry? I was gonna make crepes.”

“You were gonna make _what?”_

 

* * *

 

Steve has  to set down the rubble he’s moving to pull out his phone. The text is from Sam instead of Bucky, but includes a slightly blurry photo of Bucky. He’s in Sam’s kitchen, a little hunched over the stove, and scowling over his shoulder at Sam. Steve can just make out the pan and the bowl of batter on the counter, homely and familiar and completely at odds with the forbidding expression on Bucky’s face. The text beneath reads:

_THERE IS A CRYPTID IN MY KITCHEN._

Steve grins. A moment later, another picture arrives, of a fat stack of very thin pancakes, captioned: _WHEN DID THE WINTER SOLDIER LEARN TO MAKE CREPES, STEVEN?_

Steve smirks. _In occupied France. The lemon & sugar ones are to die for. _

_BUT WILL THEY LITERALLY KILL ME??? ARE THEY POISON??????_

Steve’s not sure exactly why Sam is typing in all caps still, but it seems to be something that Future People just do sometimes. _If they are, you’ll die happy,_ he replies. Then, after a moment of consideration, adds a winky face.

He’s just putting his phone back in his pocket when something makes him look up. A moment later the Iron Man suit streaks across the sky, with a rubble haul of his own. Steve frowns, thinking of that mark he saw earlier, the way his whole body lights up when he and Stark get into an argument, the first time he met Stark, blasting AC/DC from a dark German sky without a thinking that maybe the WWII veteran didn’t like loud noises from dark German skies.

That’s probably what it was. He probably heard the suit coming and just didn’t realize it. If he and Tony were soulmates, Steve would know. And their marks are totally different, nothing like what Steve’s got with Sam and Nat or Bucky.

He goes back to moving rubble.

 

* * *

 

By the time the cleanup is done and Bucky gets the text _on my way back now_ from Steve’s number, it’s been a full two weeks since that first alert. There had been the attack on HYDRA, and then the party afterwards that had turned into the beginning of the Ultron mess, which has then led straight into the whole Sokovia fiasco. Bucky’s barely slept, and he’s sure that Steve is even worse off.

His suspicions are confirmed when the doorbell rings and he finds Natasha standing on the stoop, hands shoved deep in her pockets.

“Hey,” she says.

“Is that Steve?” Sam calls from upstairs.

“Kind of,” Nat calls back. Then, to Bucky: “He’s crashed hard and he’s too heavy for me to move without winching equipment.”

“Lucky I got that permanently attached,” Bucky says, wiggling his metal fingers. Sam comes thumping down the stairs a moment later.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“I got sleeping beauty in my car,” Natasha says, stepping into the house at the same time that Bucky’s stepping out. Natasha’s Corvette is parked right there in front of the house, and behind him, he can hear the Falcon trying to chat up the Black Widow, and that’s comedy gold any day of the week.

‘Crashed Hard’ is a slight understatement. Steve’s face is squished against the passenger side window and his mouth is hanging slightly open. Bucky stares at him and wonders whether the poor mook got any sleep at all while all this bullshit was going down. Sometimes, back in the War, Steve would go for weeks with minimal sleep. The comedown after was always a bitch.

Bucky contemplates the arrangement and then taps on the glass with one metal finger.

Steve doesn’t even twitch.

Going for the nuclear option, Bucky pulls open the door and catches Steve as he slumps out and chokes himself on the seatbelt. This at least does jerk Steve out of sleep with an undignified flail that might have been an attempt at a punch. It swings so wide that Bucky doesn’t even have to block or dodge. Instead he hooks his hands under Steve’s armpits and sets him back in his seat.

“Buh?” Steve says blearily.

“That’s me,” Bucky confirms, reaching for the release on Steve’s seatbelt. Steve tries to help and mostly just gets in the way, but together they manage to get Steve out of the ridiculously tiny car and more or less onto his feet.

Bucky tugs Steve’s arm around his shoulders and Steve sighs happily and plants his face directly into Bucky’s hair.

“Awww,” says Sam from the doorway as Steve and Bucky make their way to the front door. “You gonna carry him bridal style across the threshold?”

Bucky shows him the middle finger on his right hand and realizes when Sam cackles that Steve has done the same with his left hand.

Steve and Bucky’s broad shoulders bump against the door frame and that wakes Steve up enough to mumble a greeting to Sam, but a moment later the words vanish into a bone-creaking yawn.

“Alright, bedtime,” Bucky declares.

“No wait, I was gonna ask Sam somethin’ impo-hortant,” Steve says, the word mangled by another yawn.

“Ask Sam to join the Avengers in the morning,” Natasha says, arms crossed and giving Steve an unimpressed look.

“Ask Sam to do _what_ in the morning?” Sam says loudly.

“Natasha—” Steve starts, but Bucky bends over, grabs him around the waist, and heaves him over his shoulder like he’s still 100 pounds soaking wet. Whatever Steve was going to say is lost in undignified squawking.

Bucky turns around, as stately as one can be when presenting two grownass adults with a view of a supersoldier's backside. "Goodnight," he says, with dignity, before carrying Steve off to the bedroom to the sound of Nat and Sam laughing in the front hall.

Bucky toes the door closed behind him and dumps Steve onto the bed.

Steve giggles. “You’re terrible,” he says, without opening his eyes.

“Christ, Pal. Ain’t seen you like this since the last time you got sloshed. When was that?”

“B’fore the serum,” Steve slurs. “Can’t get drunk anymore.” He makes grabby fingers in Bucky’s direction. “C’mere.”

Bucky comes forward like Steve’s got him on a string, reeling him in, helpless. He climbs onto the bed, over Steve. Steve grabs the front of Bucky’s shirt and yanks, until Bucky collapses over him.

Steve lets out a long sigh. “Perfect,” he mumbles, and immediately passes out.

Bucky means to get up, honestly he does. But Steve’s fingers are still locked tight in his shirt and he just… drifts off to the quiet sound of Natasha and Sam exchanging quips in the front hall.

“So am I really being recruited into the Avengers?” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Nat replies carelessly. “We need more air support. Rhodes works for the government, Wanda’s a teenager, Vision is literally a baby, and Stark’s trying to retire. Soon as Steve’s done sleeping this off we’re going to go to the Compound to start training. You in?”

“I have no idea who Wanda and Vision are but _hell yeah!”_

 

* * *

 

“Maybe I should take a page out of Barton’s book,” Tony says, strolling towards his apparently self-driving car. Steve has learned to not be surprised by these things anymore. “Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up.”

“The simple life?” Steve says. It might be a little teasing. Ain’t nothing _simple_ about Tony Stark.

But then Tony looks at him, with a little too much knowing in his face, even behind sunglasses. “You’ll get there one day.”

Steve thinks of Bucky. Bucky, who is still staying with Sam. Steve’s pretty sure that Bucky hasn’t actually managed to _leave_ Sam’s place since he arrived. He _knows_ that Bucky has to check all the locks on the doors and windows before he can sleep, but he looks so sweet sleeping in a sunbeam with his face smushed into the pillow and hair all over the place.

“Retirement, huh?” Steve looks back to the newly opened Avengers Compound. “Can’t do that while the world’s still in danger,” Steve says.

“World’s always gonna be in danger, Steve.”

“Not if she’s got a solid line of defense.” Steve turns to look at Tony, smiles. “Not Ultron. The Avengers. But… You and me — me especially,” he says with a wry tilt to his mouth. “We’re the _old guard_ now. If I retire, and the next generation of Avengers aren’t ready, then that’s on me.”

Tony nods. “I can help you with that.”

It should be a statement, but it sounds like a question. Steve looks at him and thinks, with one part of his brain, that he’s not sure he can trust Tony. The other part of his brain supplies _oh like you’ve never done stupid shit tryna prove something._

That part of his brain always sounds like Bucky.

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve decides. “I’d appreciate that.”

“I’ll see you at the gala later, right?”

 

He does let Tony talk him into attending the gala at Stark Tower. They’re trying to build back good will for the Avengers. It’s not just about Tony’s new tech and that bottomless well of Stark money. They need to _schmooze._

Steve’s not great at schmoozing. His brain is more than 80% on the list of apartments that he and Bucky are working their way through. Bucky’s real particular about where they live, to the point that he’s ready to “arrange” for the right place to “come available” if needs be. Steve has insisted that they use Steve’s reputation and bank account before Bucky tries anything more... Questionable.

So Steve’s not really paying attention to the party, until he turns and—

And that’s the first time Steve sees Pepper’s mark. She’s wearing a backless blue dress, and there is a spray of countless white pinprick spots running diagonally across her back. For a moment Steve thinks they’re scars, but they aren’t. Something in him tells him that they aren’t. It’s hard to look away from it. It starts just over her left hip bone and splashes across her spine, up to her right shoulder. She’s been abroad; her skin is a few shades tanner than usual, so the white marks stand out all the sharper. Like freckles, but also clearly, clearly not.

Tony comes up behind her, put his hands on her hips, and kisses her under the ear.

And suddenly Steve gets it. The white spray of marks — that’s the Milky Way, and Tony’s blackened chest and shoulders — that’s the night sky. The arc reactor hangs like a moon, right in the middle of it all.

Steve resists the urge to scratch at his own soulmark. He thinks of the team — Nat and Clint were always SHIELD agents first, Avengers second, but there’s the four of them who sit at the core of it. Steve’s star, Thor’s lightning, Bruce’s green aurora, and the night sky that lets them all shine. Tony. They can’t shine without Tony.

He thinks of Bucky, and the star between his shoulders. How it's changed, it's different, but they still work. That's the thing, isn't it? They're different, but they work.

And that’s when Steve starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he can really trust Tony.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iii - chara: joy**

_Hometown Pride: Despite the press surrounding the events in Sokovia, Captain America’s home borough seems more than happy to welcome her favorite son back, after over seventy years away…_

_Jans, Alexander. “Homecoming: Captain America Returns to Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Eagle. May 18, 2015._

 

 

 

They’re going back to Brooklyn.

Bucky doesn’t quite know what to do with this information. It makes him. Happy?

He walks around Brooklyn and it makes him feel like he’s sinking in, but he doesn’t know whether that’s a _good_ sinking in or a _bad_ sinking in. He tries to talk to Steve about it, but Steve’s just so unambiguously, blindingly _happy_ to have Bucky back that it’s sort of like talking about his feelings to a Labrador puppy. It’s not… unhelpful, it’s just… the Labrador puppy doesn’t exactly provide useful feedback.

He tries to talk to Natasha about it, but she can’t really relate. She’s never _gone back to before_ because there _is_ no before for her to go back _to._

“You doing alright, man?” Sam asks.

Bucky kind of jerks back to himself to find that he’s been staring blankly at a spot about six inches over the screen of his phone for… too many minutes probably. He’s… in that long stay hotel room that Steve got and… Steve’s on mission, so… so this is Sam coming to check up on him.

Bucky sighs and rubs his forehead. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I just.” He shakes his head.

Sam sits down across from him at the shitty little table they’ve got. He and Steve really need to get their own place. Although… Bucky’s not sure how he’s going to make that work. Steve’s sure they can. Bucky… isn’t.

“I get it,” Sam says.

Bucky tries very hard, and manages not to roll his eyes at that, but he thinks it must come through anyway because Sam arches a brow and adds: “What, you think you're the only guy who really likes to chill out in places where snipers very conveniently can't get a good angle?”

Bucky betrays himself by glancing at the shuttered windows.

“Yeah man, I noticed. I'm not blind.”

Bucky looks back and finds Sam giving him a very pointed look.

“So I say again: you doing alright?”

“That…” Bucky sighs. “That's a really good question.”

“So tell me about it,” Sam says. “I ain’t here to judge. Not about that, anyway. About your hair choices, yes. About your struggles, not so much.”

“My hair is amazing and Steve loves it.”

“I did not need to know that,” Sam says cheerfully. “And you are avoiding my question.”

Bucky lets his head fall and thunk gently against the table. (Gently now, the last thing he needs is _even more_ brain damage.) “I feel crazy.”

“After everything that happened, I’d be deeply concerned if you _didn’t_ feel crazy.”

Bucky shakes his head, forehead rolling against the wood. “Someone shouted at me in the crosswalk—”

“Ahhh, New York,” Sam muses.

“—and I shouted back, and it was the most normal I’ve felt in a while, and then I realized that the entire conversation had happened in Chinese.”

“I didn’t know you spoke Chinese.”

“Neither did I.” Bucky lifts his head and gives Sam a look. “I feel _crazy.”_

“Man, tell me about it,” Sam murmurs. “I'm not saying it's the same, but... I was over there for two tours, came back and my favorite shitty diner had turned into this hipster nonsense coffee shop. Everyone was talking about like it’d been there for years. And I just… for like a week I thought ‘maybe there never was a diner’ before I managed to bring it up in conversation all casual-like and everyone was like: 'oh haven’t you heard? They burned that place down trying to get the insurance money.' Which, let me tell you, did not make me feel _less_ crazy.”

Bucky stares for a moment, and then bursts out into strange, hacking, wheezing laughter.

“So you’re not alone, is what I’m saying.”

“So nice to have soulmates as crazy as I am.”

Sam looks comically offended. “How dare you, we are not soulmates. _I_ am platonically soulmated with _Captain America_ and _you_ have got a whole other kinda thing going on with some idiot named Steve. But you and me?” Sam waves his hand back and forth in the air between them. “You are just the asshole who ripped the steering wheel out of my car and we happen to have similar birthmarks.”

Bucky grins. “Fair enough.”

 

* * *

 

Steve gets his own place after Sokovia. Bucky picks it out; a little brownstone not too far from where they used to live, back in the day. He explains about sightlines and the layout, and exit strategies, and security cam coverage. Steve doesn’t really need to have it explained to him, but he listens, just for the joy of hearing Bucky talk.

Steve moves in with help from Sam and Nat, who are rolling their eyes while they pretend they don't know Barnes is back. Of course they know. Steve's soulbond with them isn’t enhanced by the serum (and nearly a century of knowing each other) but even so, Sam and Nat both knew the _instant_ Bucky came back. Nat had actually scolded him about it, because she started laughing in the middle of an interrogation for no goddamn reason and it had ruined the vibe she was going for.

But no one _else_ knows that Bucky is back, on account of the whole “internationally wanted fugitive” thing. So Sam and Nat are sworn to secrecy, even as they help Steve move a couch that he definitely picked out himself with no input from a man across the street with a sniper scope.

“I hate to think of you rattling around here all alone,” Sam deadpans, as he drops a box with somewhat less care than was called for. “Whatever will you do.”

“You should get a cat,” Nat suggests, looking directly at an apparently empty corner of the room. Steve strongly suspects that Bucky hid a camera up there. “A _longhair,”_ she adds, and narrows her eyes.

Steve is too happy to feel even a hint of annoyance at being ribbed in his own home.

 

To celebrate the new place, Steve and Bucky go on a date.

Kind of.

Buck’s real paranoid; Steve can’t help but find it endearing. He doesn’t even feel embarrassed when he goes to the park (alone) and buys some gelato (alone) and then lies out on the grass and waits.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. Number withheld. He answers. “Hey.”

“Didja get the cinnamon like I said?” Bucky says.

Steve tips his head back and smiles. He has no idea where Bucky is. He suspects Bucky is also in the park, but Steve won’t go looking. Bucky doesn’t want to risk being seen together in public. “Yeah. S’pretty good. Tastes like cinnamon rolls, you know? What did you get?”

“I,” Bucky pronounces, with grandiosity, “got a Rocket Pop.”

Steve groans. There’s a loud, suction-y slurping sound from Bucky’s end. “You’re the worst person I know,” Steve says, squeezing his eyes shut so as to more clearly imagine whatever obscene thing Bucky is doing to his ice cream.

Bucky pulls off with an audible pop. “Damn right.” He sounds unfairly proud of himself.

 

* * *

 

Half the guys on Steve’s street have long hair and scruffy faces: Bucky can pop on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and vanish, like it’s a damn card trick. He calls himself Jason Vincent. Jason prefers Jay. Jay does not _appear_ to live with Steve. He _appears_ to live several streets over, in a little studio apartment. Jay’s studio apartment (basically a safe house) has a (camera free) route (across rooftops) to Steve’s brownstone (if you’re a supersoldier.)

Bucky sets the rules. The rules are these: No conversation outside the apartment except over the secure line Bucky set up. They can get coffee at the same shop at the same time, but only if they pretend not to know each other. Bucky initiates phonecalls. Steve may text whenever he likes. They both have a panic button that goes directly to each others’ phones. Steve swears to use his if he’s badly hurt on an Avengers mission. Bucky uses his when he forgets who he is, or when he thinks Hydra is closing in. That happens less and less as they settle in, but it happens three times the first week.

Bucky never knows what’s going to set him off, and this time, of all the things in the fucking world, it’s the outdated security camera in the bodega down the street. Damn thing hasn’t been replaced since probably 1985 and he glances up at it, sidelong as he’s about to leave with his smokes and finds that he _knows_ that camera. He knows that model, the specs and he knows that there will be a VHS recording all this. He knows. That was the camera that watched him when… when…

The panic is welling up in him already and he’s good at covering this, he knows he is, but the urge to get somewhere with cover is _strong_ so he turns down the nearest dark alley. He’s in the alley, he’s—

—on a road, looking down at Howard Stark’s bleeding face, the light leaving his eyes, and he—

—goes all the way to the back of the alley, _the alley,_ behind the dumpsters, and he doesn’t light the smokes he just bought because he’s—

—walking around to put his fingers around Maria Stark’s throat and he’s—

—fumbling in his jacket pocket. He pulls out his phone, drops it, swears and gets down on his knees in the filthy alley to get his phone, get it open, hit the button, the _panic button._ He looks up and he’s—

—staring down the camera. His handlers are watching. His handlers are always watching. And he is supposed to take out the camera, go to the recording station, pick up the VHS and deliver to his handlers so they can confirm that he did it right.

So they can reward him. So they can punish him. So they can put him on his next assignment. There will be more assignments, more missions, an endless cycle of going into the ice and coming out _forever._

“Bucky.”

God. He killed Howard. _He killed Howard._ He didn’t even _hesitate._ What kind of a _monster_ kills their _friend,_ and his _wife,_ just because someone _told him to._

“Come on pal, look at me _.”_

He will outlive all his handlers, but there will always be more. _Cut off one head, and two more will take its place._ New faces to thaw him and give him his guns. There is always the next mission, there is always more blood, there is always more, and no one will save him. Howard is dead, who’s left who could? Who would bother to come for him? Who would _want to?_ He _killed Howard Stark._

If you want to get out of here, you’re going to have to do it yourself, asshole.

“Come on, Soldier, report.”

A hand falls on his shoulder.

He lashes out. First with the fist, the metal one, and gets to his feet when the handler staggers back. He palms the knife from his boot and comes up ready to slash.

The handler blocks the first jab and Bucky leaves a long red gash on Steve’s forearm.

_Steve’s_ forearm.

Bucky makes himself freeze on the spot, calling an all-systems halt.

Steve takes his hesitation as an advantage and retreats a pace, falling into a fighting crouch.

Blood drips from Steve’s arm with a quiet _plink plink plink._ Steve’s eyes track him, warily. “Bucky?” he says.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Yeah, Steve, it’s me. I’m—”

Steve cuts in before Bucky can apologize. “It’s okay.”

It’s not. It’s really not.

 

The tears don’t hit until they’re at Bucky’s safehouse, thank God. Bucky-Back-Then had always been a bit of a crier. Un-fucking-fortunately, that was one of the first things to come back when he started to undo the HYDRA brainfuck. Now all it takes is for Steve to look at him wrong and he feels the telltale thickness in his throat. One would think that seven decades of murder might numb one to the need to cry at beautiful sunsets and minor mishaps and light stabbings. One would, apparently, be wrong.

Bucky scrubs angrily at his nose with the back of his forearm and goes back to bandaging the cut on Steve’s arm.

“Honey, it’s okay,” Steve says, for the millionth time.

Bucky slams his open palm against the tile under his knees hard enough to leave a crack. “No,” he says quietly. “It _isn’t.”_

Steve wisely doesn’t say anything, just keeps sitting meekly on the toilet lid, letting Bucky tape the bandage into place on his forearm. Bucky smooths the tape, creating a seamless seal around the edge of the gauze — not that Steve’s serum-enhanced body needs any protection from germs, but it’s the thought that counts, right? It’s the—

Bucky pulls off the rubber gloves and wipes the tears from his cheeks again.

“You want more protocols?” Steve prompts gently.

Bucky nods. Protocols are good. They help. But it sucks to have to come up with them _after_ the fact. He feels like he should’ve seen this coming. There should already _be_ protocols for this.

“Was it because I touched you?” Steve asks, doing an admirable job trying to hold back his guilt.

“No, it was because of a _camera,”_ Bucky mutters. “Goddamn camera, reminded me of — It was because of something I did.”

“It was because of _HYDRA,”_ Steve says, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“Yeah.” Bucky sits back and stretches his legs out in front of him so his calves are on either side of Steve’s feet. “But you shouldn’t have touched me. That let me know where you were. That’s how I got the hit in.”

“Okay, so no touching you when you’re… like that,” Steve says. “But touch sometimes helps you get back to yourself, you know?”

“Believe me, I do,” Bucky says. “It’s a real bitch of a situation.”

Steve slides down to sit on the tiles in the vee of Bucky’s legs. “You never hurt me when you know it’s _me.”_

“Untrue, I punched you right in the nose that time in ‘37 when you were being an idiot about that job at the docks.” And he’d fucking _cried_ about it after. Of course he had.

Steve’s eyes go narrow as lasers, because he has never, not once, forgotten an argument, and he never will. “He was a _racist,_ Bucky.”

“He was _paying,_ Steve, and it was the _thirties,_ they were _all_ racists.”

“And they would’ve _stayed_ racists as long as no one stood up to them!”

“I swear to God, Steven Grant, I will break your nose again.”

“See, now I know you’re you. You called me Steven Grant.”

“Your ma called you Steven Grant,” Bucky points out. It’s a joke, but it’s also a code, a pass phrase. _See? I remember that._

Steve beams. “Pretty sure you ain’t my ma, Barnes.”

They lapse into quiet for a moment. Steve nudges Bucky’s thigh with his toe. “Maybe if you tell me what it was, then we could—”

Bucky flinches back, feeling a violent lurch in his guts as Howard’s face swims before him, bloody, nose crushed up into his brilliant mind, eyes flat and staring and—

“Or not!” Steve hurries to add. “Hey, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

No, Steve should know, Steve should know what kind of monster— “It was Howard,” Bucky grits out. “It was Howard. I remembered. Him and his wife. I—”

Steve hauls him in and wraps his arms around him. “I know,” he says softly. “I already know.”

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s shoulders. Steve rubs his hands over Bucky’s back, over his soulmark. Bucky feels his shoulders come down from around his ears, that feeling of _goodsafehome_ seeping through his panic, seeping into his bones.

Steve hums, a deep rumble in both their chests. “What if we say… No touching you until you confirm that you know who I am. Sound good?”

Bucky nods.

“Confirmed callsigns for me are… Steve, Stevie, Steven Grant…”

“Punk.”

“Rogers.”

“You _asshole.”_

“Yeah, that too.”

Bucky kisses him. It’s awkward, here on the floor, all twisted around and wrapped up in each other, but Bucky lets himself get lost in the rhythm of it for a while, the give and take, the closeness.

“I got a protocol,” Steve says when they break apart. “Can I make protocols too?”

Bucky looks at him, both brows raised. In the harsh light of their bathroom, Steve looks all washed out, almost skeletal, those cheekbones of his, the sharp angles of his face, that _jawline._ “Course you can, doll. What’s your protocol?”

“It’s more of a request, or a — a rule. An order,” Steve says, looking more determined by the second.

Bucky thumbs the line of Steve’s cheekbone. “Yeah alright, I’m used to orders from you.”

“Don’t leave,” Steve says, in that determined but calm way that means that it’s important. Beyond important. He’s desperate. He meets Bucky’s gaze, locking Bucky there, in this moment. “Don’t leave me again.”

Bucky swallows. He takes Steve’s face in both hands this time, and doesn’t blink, so Steve can see that he means it, right down to his bones, when he says: “Never, pal. You’re stuck with me.”

 

* * *

 

Every time Bucky comes swinging in through the back window, after dark, Steve puts on his best radio announcer voice and says: “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”

“You never get tired of that, do ya,” Bucky says, every time, and smacks Steve upside the head before crawling into his lap like a jaguar that thinks it’s a kitten.

Steve puts his fingers in Bucky’s hair and feels the tension drain out of Bucky’s frame. It might be a real pain, all the subterfuge and whatnot, except that the subterfuge is all at Bucky’s insistence. Bucky isn’t ready for the media circus, the inevitable trial, the questions. He doesn’t want that, and Steve doesn’t have it in him to deny Bucky anything.

Steve understands that most people would find Bucky’s rules unreasonable. Most people have never been separated from their soulmate for seventy years. Most people aren’t being actively pursued by both the good guys and the bad guys. Most people don’t fight supervillains and aliens.

They aren’t most people.

Steve, if he is honest, has never been happier. What they’ve got now, maybe it’s weird, but it works. Bucky isn’t the only one who’s happy to have privacy.

The only thing that Steve asks for is this: Bucky in his lap or by his side in the evenings. Bucky in his bed at night, always. Bucky there in the morning, no matter what. Everything else is just bonus material. In the morning, Bucky commutes across rooftops back to Jay's apartment and Steve commutes across town or across state to the Tower or the Compound, depending on the day.

Bucky has been more-or-less living with him for three months now. Steve doesn’t want to rush him, they can keep going like this as long as Bucky wants, but Steve wants to be prepared. The future is always coming, and Steve does like to have a plan ready.

“So I been thinking,” Steve says.

“Uh oh,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t go tense.

Steve takes in a breath. “I think we could talk to Tony. I think we should, actually. I think we can trust him.”

_Now_ Bucky goes tense. “Tony. As in Tony Stark. Howard’s son.”

“My _friend_ , Tony, yeah.”

“Tony _Stark,”_ Bucky repeats. “You know I—”

“I know.”

“You really think he’s gonna help the guy who killed his mother with his bare hands?” Bucky says bluntly. He’s turned into one giant knot of tension, but he hasn’t left Steve’s lap yet.

“I think we’re gonna have a lot of enemies if this all comes out, and Tony’s got the power to move mountains. You can’t win a war without the right allies, Buck. And…” Steve squirms a little. “It’s not right to keep this from him. He should know, he’s…”

“A soulmate, I know,” Bucky grumbles.

“No,” Steve protests, but it lacks conviction. He and Tony aren’t _soulmate-_ soulmates, it’s not like that. Steve would know. Wouldn’t he? Tony would’ve said.

Wouldn’t he?

Steve shakes his head. “It’s not like…” He makes a noise of frustration. “It’s just the right thing to do, Buck. You know it is.”

Steve can hear Bucky grinding his teeth. “You know this would all be a hell of a lot easier for me personally if I was in Bucharest buying plums.”

It hurts a little to hear him say it. _This would all be a hell of a lot easier if you weren’t my soulmate,_ is what Bucky means. But Steve just swallows and takes it. He’s taken worse hits. And he’s probably given worse hits to Bucky, over the years.

Bucky lets out a breath. “We gotta be smart about it, though. So _I’m_ calling the shots, yeah?”

“Always, Buck.”

 

The thing is, there’s just no way to prepare for Tony Stark.

“So.” Tony claps his hands together and looks around at the inside of Steve’s apartment. He seems a little frazzled. Steve thinks he might have been drinking. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad, but— “Is this the part where I get to stop pretending not to know that Barnes is back?” Tony sounds a little tired, and extra sharp in that way that means he’s got more than the usual amount of stress.

Steve stares at Tony. They had, technically, anticipated this as a possibility, but Steve hadn’t expected Tony to come out of the gate swinging.

Tony points one slightly wobbly finger at him. He’s wearing a very futuristic looking watch. “I mean, you did know that _we all know_ Barnes is back, right? I know _he’s_ a super spy assassin or whatever, but _you_ very much are not. You went from looking like you were on the verge of crying every minute of every day to a frankly terrifying level of zen-like peace. You literally went from Eeyore to Giselle overnight, like that was not at all suspicious.”

“Oh for _fuck’s_ sake,” says a muffled voice from the other room. The door bangs open and Bucky comes stomping in. He punches Steve, hard, in the arm. Steve gets out his wallet and hands over the ten bucks he owes. Bucky snatches his winnings out of Steve’s hand. “Honestly. I seen actual literal circuses with better op sec than you.” Bucky then turns to Tony. “Hi. I’m Bucky.”

Tony looks taken aback by this display, and he’s now got an Iron Man gauntlet on his hand. Steve has no idea where it came from. It’s not quite raised, but it’s certainly at the ready.

“Okay then,” Tony says. “Look, I’ll believe that even with Soviet brainwashing, you wouldn’t hurt your soulmate, but if you’re gonna shake hands with that.” Tony eyes Bucky’s metal arm, “I’m gonna shake hands with this.” The repulsor whines a little.

“I ain’t here to shake your hand,” Bucky says, looking a little pained. “I’m here to apologize.”

“Bucky!” Steve protests hotly. They’d argued about this for days. “You got _nothing_ to—”

“Shut up, Steve. This ain't about me and it ain't about you.” He looks Tony square in the face, and Steve's the only one who sees his flesh hand shaking. “You deserve to hear it from me, alright? I’m sorry.” He takes a deep breath in. “Hydra had me kill your parents,” Bucky says, pulling the bandage off in one go. “I didn’t have much say in the matter, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did it.”

Tony’s hand is fully raised now, palm out, and he’s breathing hard. There’s something complicated happening on his face. There’s white showing all around his eyes. Everyone in the apartment goes still. They’d anticipated this, a little bit. Steve had said that Tony’s parents were a real sensitive topic, and as much as he hated it, because it put Bucky at risk, their best shot was to be honest. He’d wanted a chance to talk to Tony a bit _first,_ to explain what happened to Bucky, but… as usual, Tony is too smart to be handled, and too unpredictable to be managed.

Bucky’s got his hands clenched at his sides, leaving himself open to attack, and the sight of it sets Steve onto the balls of his feet, ready to dive between them, ready to—

Tony whirls on Steve. “You knew about this?” All trace of the jokester is gone. There’s something raw in Tony’s face. Raw and vulnerable.

Steve puts as much firmness into his voice as he can. “It wasn’t him. Hydra had control of his mind, he—”

“Don’t bull _shit_ me, Rogers, did _you_ know?”

And _oh._ Steve miscalculated. He glances at Bucky, sees Buck's eyes widen. They'd anticipated Tony going for Bucky, summoning the Avengers, the FBI even.

They didn't figure Tony's wrath would turn on _Steve_.

“Rogers!” Tony snaps. “Answer me!”

Steve swallows. He makes himself hold Tony’s gaze. “Yes.”

Tony jerks back like Steve slapped him. But there's this look on his face like _of course_ , like _I should have expected this,_ like _I can't believe I fell for it again._

And that’s when Steve remembers what Pepper told him about Obadiah Stane. Howard and Maria aren’t Tony’s only vulnerable spot.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Steve says immediately. “I didn’t know how to tell you without—“

“Shut up,” Tony snaps. The gauntlet on his hand is powering up and down, like the guy wearing it can’t decide whether he wants to shoot or not. Bucky has gone very still. _“Fuck you, Rogers,_ what the hell, you didn’t—I can’t—” He’s breathing hard, and the transformation from the swaggering asshole who came into the apartment to _this…_ it couldn’t be more dramatic. “You’ve been, what? Playing house with the guy who _killed my mom?”_

“He’s my soulmate,” Steve says hopelessly.

“So was I,” Tony says, very quietly. His dark eyes are burning with the betrayal, the hurt.

They aren’t, not really, but Steve knows what Tony means. There’s a potential between them, never realized. They _could_ be soulmates, but they’ve never quite managed to be friends. When they first met, Steve had been too raw from the ice and losing Bucky, and Tony was always too confrontational. Like he didn’t really want a soulmate. The connection hadn’t stuck.

Steve’s always been confident that he’d _know_ his soulmates when he met them, so when he and Tony didn’t click right away, he’d dismissed the possibility. He’d never even considered it, not seriously.

Maybe he should have.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again, and means it.

Tony’s face twists, and he swings for Steve, only to have Bucky’s metal fist catch the gauntlet. Tony turns on Bucky, and fires the repulsor. It’s just a short burst, but Bucky is thrown back a few steps. Steve feels the shock of the hit in his own left arm, sees Bucky pull the metal limb in like it hurts him.

Rage blooms in Steve. He goes to tackle Tony, but at that moment, the window explodes and Tony is shrouded in red and gold.

“Tony, _no!”_ Steve shouts, ready to throw himself in front of Bucky, but Tony doesn’t turn on Bucky, he turns on _Steve,_ repulsors raised, and powering up. For a split second Steve just stares, because this has gone _so much worse_ than they had imagined. He doesn’t have the shield, he doesn’t even have body armor, and he thinks _welp, I guess this is where we find out if I can survive a repulsor blast to the face._

And then he’s unceremoniously being shoved down into the curled up cradle of Bucky’s arms. Bucky has wrapped himself around Steve, making his body into a shield, turning his back on Tony, like a mother might curl around her child to protect them from a fire.

“Not this time, goddammit,” Bucky hisses, and Steve’s not sure he’s even talking to Steve. Maybe he’s talking to God.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, and all he can do is hold on. Like he should have all those years ago.

The repulsors power up, higher, and higher, and—

_“Fuck,”_ Tony says, and even through the modulators, Steve can hear his voice cracking.

The repulsors fire, but it’s the sustained blast of flight mode, not the sharp burst of an attack. More glass shatters as Tony blasts out the window.

“Oh God,” Steve says, pushing Bucky off him. He digs in his pocket and calls Pepper.

 

This is how Steve discovers that Pepper had literally _just_ left the Tower. Three months of couples’ counseling had resulted in her and Tony _taking a break,_ to see if they could become a little less codependent.

Steve didn’t know. He _didn’t know._

While Steve discovered this, Bucky found plastic sheeting and cardboard and covered the broken window, with the kind of stoic plodding of a man righting his furniture after the house blew away in a hurricane. Pepper is now calling Rhodes, and Steve is pacing a hole in the carpet, trying to get in touch with Nat to see if she knows more than she lets on about wherever the fuck Bruce is hiding. His eyes feel like sandpaper, and his face is raw.

Bucky is sitting on the couch. He’s got his metal hand laid out in his lap. The delicate plates of his palm and fingers are blackened, and when he flexes them, they twitch irregularly. The repulsor blast must have damaged something inside.

“She’s not answering,” Steve says, hanging up.

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He looks pale, a little sweaty. For all that the Arm is tough, and doesn’t really feel pain, any damage to it always seems to send him far away, in his head. Steve doesn't like to think where.

“We fucked this up,” Steve whispers, standing in front of Bucky. “We shoulda—”

“I’m not sure I’m worth all this, Steve,” Bucky says, without looking up.

“Don’t you _dare,”_ Steve snaps, “say that to _me.”_

Bucky lifts his head. His eyes are blank and dull, the way they hardly ever are since he moved in with Steve. “I killed his _parents,_ Steve. I made him an orphan.”

“So he can join the goddamn club,” Steve says, harsh. “Plenty of us got no parents. And you didn’t do it.”

“My hands, Steve.”

“But it wasn’t your _choice.”_

Bucky doesn’t answer, but he won’t meet Steve’s eyes either. He’s got that listless look that means he isn’t really here.

Steve drops to his knees in front of Bucky. He takes the damaged metal hand and kisses the palm. The metal smells like smoke. Bucky doesn’t look at him. Steve puts the hand back in Bucky’s lap and takes Bucky’s face between his palms. “Hey. You going somewhere?”

Bucky blinks, but those stormy eyes lift and focus, laboriously, on Steve’s face. “No,” he intones.

“Good, cuz you promised me, you know?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I did, but…”

“No buts.” Steve kisses him, short and fierce. “Come on. It’s freezing in here.”

 

They go to the bedroom and they sit on the bed, trying to figure out what to do next. But every time Steve suggests that they run, Bucky shakes his head violently. “You can’t start running, not _you._ You start running—”

“They’ll never let you stop.” Steve drops his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder. It’s the metal one. “You’re right,” he says. “I know. You’re right.”

Bucky curls his fingers — the metal ones — over the back of Steve's neck, then down his spine to lay flat over his soulmark. They’re still a little twitchy.

 

They don’t sleep, so they’re still awake at 3:30 in the morning when Iron Man breaks off their front door handle, staggers into their chilled living room, and stumbles out of his clanking metal suit. He reeks of bad whiskey and worse decisions. Steve's less ready for a fight now than he was earlier: he’s barefoot and wearing soft pants. And frankly, that's deliberate. They’re not running, and he's not going to fight Tony. He won't do it.

Tony says: “I think I have to tell you guys about the Accords,” in such a fast, drunken slur that Steve can barely understand him.

“Tony—”

“No don’t—Don’t talk to me right now. I’m just.” He scrubs his hands through his hair, a frantically fast back and forth motion. The suit is still as a statue behind him, an empty shell, dead without his frenetic energy driving it forward. “You,” he points at Bucky. “I don’t like. And you,” he points at Steve. “I cannot fucking believe. I—” he shakes his head sharply. “We’re not friends. Alright? I can’t have friends like that in my life. But. You two are soulmates. That’s gotta mean something. It’s _gotta.”_

Tony looks _wrecked._ He looks raw. He looks the way Steve felt when Bucky was gone.

“I think I have to tell you guys about the Accords,” Tony says again. And then he throws his hands in the air and a hologram projects out from the Iron Man suit, scans of a document with the UN logo at the top.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **iv - baten kaitos: belly of the whale**

_**what dril tweet r u based on where ur soulmark is** _

_**head/face:** awfully bold of you to fly the Good Year blimp on a year that has been extremely bad thus far _

_**chest:** me: nobody has to get owned today. please, please put down the keyboard and step back / 9 year old child: Fuck oyu _

_**back/shoulders:** fuck "jokes". everything i tweet is real. raw insight without the horse shit. no, i will NOT follow trolls. twitter dot com. i live for this _

_**biceps:** another day volunteering at the betsy ross museum. everyone keeps asking me if they can fuck the flag. buddy, they wont even let me fuck it _

_**forearms/hands:** the doctor reveals my blood pressure is 420 over 69. i hoot & holler outta the building while a bunch of losers try to tell me that im dying _

_**legs:** blocked. blocked. blocked. youre all blocked. none of you are free of sin _

 

 

 

General Thaddeus Ross, Secretary of State, has no idea what he’s in for when he agrees to an appointment with Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America. How can he say no, after all? Steve sits patiently in the waiting area, in his dress blues, and makes soft, smiling conversation with the General’s secretary until his turn comes.

“Thank you,” he says, like the polite young man he isn’t, really, and picks up the satchel he brought with him.

He comes into the General’s office, and Ross says: “Won’t you please—”

And Steve says: “No I don’t think I will,” and slams his full, printed copy of the Accords down on General Ross’s desk.

Ross stares at it, for a moment. “Ah.”

“Thought we wouldn’t notice,” Steve says, a grim little homage to the man whose friendship he’s hoping to earn back one day. “But we did.”

“Captain—”

“Got a few things I want to go over with you.” The inches-thick document is peppered with red sticky flags. Steve has been over it himself, and then went over it again with their lawyer, Bernie Rosenthal, and then once more with Buck and Nat at his back. He can, if necessary, recite the thing verbatim, thanks to his serum-enhanced memory. “But first.”

He drops the surveillance photos of the half-constructed Raft (courtesy Redwing) on top of the thickly annotated Accords. “We've already sent copies of these to the Times and the Post. You weren’t hoping to keep this a _secret,_ were you? See, I’ve got this _problem_ with governments that run _concentration camps._ It’s a well-documented pet peeve of mine.”

“It’s a prison, not a concentration—”

“You say tomato. I say fascist.”

“I am trying to save the world from calamity, I don’t have time for your sanctimoniousness.” Ross says. “Like you’re in any position to judge—”

“The position _we_ are in, to be clear, is that _I_ have the high ground, and I am ready to rain hellfire down on _your_ position. Do you understand?”

Ross doesn’t quail, which Steve must grudgingly respect. He is aware that there are nuclear bombs with less forceful personalities than Steven Fucking Rogers. Bucky has told him this. Lovingly. And frequently.

“You have my attention,” Ross agrees, very reluctantly. “What exactly did you have in mind, Captain?”

“A few adjustments.” He flips open to the first sticky note. “Seems like whoever wrote this doesn’t have a real firm grasp on international law, but lucky for them I do.”

“You do? Since when?”

“Since last week,” Steve says. “Now. This shouldn’t take more than six or seven hours.”

 

* * *

 

Eight hours later, FRIDAY chirps: “Boss, we’ve got an incoming call from Secretary Ross.”

“Yeah, put him through,” Tony says, without looking up from his most recent project. Sparks fly a little, and he pulls back to look at the holographic display.

“Tony,” says Ross. “We have a problem.”

“Ah, please hold,” Tony says brightly.

“No, don’t—”

Tony pokes at the holographic display. Ross’s voice cuts off and a little light starts blinking. Tony turns back to his current project.

Bucky, whose hand is the current project, wonders whether he can say anything without angering Tony further. Steve had gone groveling after three weeks of Bucky dropping things, and occasionally breaking doorknobs and shit. Tony had agreed to take a look, so Bucky had made his covert way over to the Tower and FRIDAY whisked him up a secret back elevator straight to Tony’s lab.

And now here they are.

Tony glances up, and sees Bucky watching him. “What. You’ve never seen someone put the Secretary of State on hold before? You scandalized, old man?”

“Historically I haven’t gotten along very well with Secretaries of State,” Bucky says flatly.

Tony’s mouth twitches, and he goes back to working on the hand laid out on the table in front of him. It’s still attached, but Tony had pulled some plates off and done something above the elbow and now it’s numbed and immobile from mid-bicep down. Bucky is not wild about this state of affairs, but he’s tolerated worse things. He knows how to handle it.

It’s not that he thinks about other things or goes to his happy place, he just kind of voluntarily takes three paces to the left and watches like it’s happening to someone else.

“Did they ever tell you how this got integrated?” Tony asks.

Bucky comes out of that weird checked-out headspace that allows him to get through this kind of shit. “Pardon?”

“I’m trying to figure out how they made the osseointegration and neurointegration work. It could be useful. I saw Steve flinch when this got fried. He feels it through your soulbond, right? Like it’s part of you?”

“It is part of me,” Bucky says.

“Yeah. I’m saying this could advance prosthetics by decades, if we could—”

“You couldn’t do this to a normal person. They wouldn’t survive,” Bucky reports. “I didn’t.”

Tony freezes. His eyes track slowly up to Bucky’s face.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I know I’m not _actually_ a ghost,” he says.

“Right, of course.” Tony sounds relieved.

“Steve and I had a whole thing about that,” Bucky says, offhand. “We only communicated via Ouija Board for four days while he talked me around.”

Tony stares.

“Kidding,” Bucky says.

“Yeah... you’re a riot.” Tony shifts in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “So. When you say that you didn’t survive…”

Bucky sighs heavily. “I mean they worked on me until I died, then they kept working on me like Frankenstein, and then… I don’t know, I think it was forty five minutes before they resuscitated me? I was basically braindead for a while.” He shrugs and looks at the ceiling. “I got better.”

Tony is staring again. Bucky can feel it, even if he won’t look. “That wasn’t in the file Steve gave me.”

“There’s a lot that ain’t in the file.”

“But if you’ve got records of what they did, you should’ve showed me before I started—”

“No,” Bucky says. “Those files were destroyed. But I remember the surgery. They didn’t have anything strong enough to put me under so they immobilized me instead.” Bucky risks a glance.

Stark’s gone pale. “You remember the surgery,” he states.

Bucky’s eyes flick down at the middle of Tony’s chest, where the arc reactor isn’t anymore. “Yeah,” he says. “I remember everything.”

 

* * *

 

When Steve comes to collect Bucky from the Tower, Tony greets him with a “your boy is having hot chocolate with Bailey’s in the common area,” and leaves. Steve finds a very confused but also not unhappy looking Bucky, bundled in about a dozen microfleece blankets, his flesh and metal hands curled around a huge mug of steaming hot chocolate with marshmallows bobbing around in it.

A nature documentary is playing on the TV. There’s a black and blue… bird?

“Heya Buck,” Steve says, a little bemused.

“Hey,” Bucky says. He doesn't take his eyes off the TV. There’s a little BBC logo in the top, and a soothing narrator that reminds Steve a little of Vision with his accent. “How’d it go with Ross?”

“Not bad.”

On the TV, the bird is now bouncing around maniacally, making little clicking and screeching sounds.

Steve is having some trouble focusing on what Bucky’s asking him. The bird is very distracting. “Thhhhink we got a good start on fixing the Accords. What, uh…” Steve sits next to Bucky as best he can when he’s got a solid foot of blanket cushioning on all sides of him. “What’s all this about, huh?”

Bucky looks up, his face framed by red and gold microfleece. He looks baffled. “Stark’s kid is really weird,” Bucky tells him.

 

* * *

 

They all gather in Avengers Tower a few weeks before the signing — even Bucky. He’s not an Avenger, of course, but he is technically still a Howling Commando, and also technically a superpowered employee (albeit an unpaid and unwilling one) of the goddamn US intelligence services. No one ever bothered to fire him, and the Army hasn’t discharged him. Which means that he qualifies as an “enhanced member of a military, paramilitary, or intelligence organization” and if he doesn’t agree to abide by the Accords, he won’t be allowed to continue serving etc etc. Not that he wants to continue serving, of course. But that’s not the point.

The point is that the Accords are not a perfect document, but they've gone three dozen rounds back and forth between the UN and the Avengers, and Bernie is sharp as a damn tack. Bucky really likes her. There’s provisions that make the world marginally safer from superpowered mayhem of the local variety, but still allows for the Avengers to work as a rapid response team. There’s also an “Enhanced Person’s Bill of Rights” which guarantees in no uncertain terms that supers have all the rights they should.

And Steve still won’t sign the damn thing. Bucky isn’t surprised. They won’t ditch the clause about how supers aren’t allowed to just go barging across country borders without an invitation, so _of course_ Steve won’t sign it. Bucky doesn’t quite understand how the others are surprised about this.

Bucky, who hasn’t been surprised about anything Steve does since 1943, leans back in his chair and watches the show.

“If you don’t sign this, you can’t be an Avenger anymore! It’s this or retirement, Rogers!” Tony tells him, waving the sign sheet in Steve’s face before slamming it back down on the table next to the pen.

Steve takes a deep breath in. He lets it out. His shoulders go down and back. Bucky smiles, seeing what’s coming.

“Okay then,” Steve says.

Tony is taken aback by this. “Okay?” he says.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I been on the job for the better part of a century. Past time for me to clock out.”

Bucky ducks his head to hide a smile.

“Then why don’t you just — sign it, and _then_ retire?” Tony says, mustering up more exasperation.

“That’d be dishonest,” Steve says.

Bucky glances up and sees Natasha roll her eyes. Actually _roll_ her goddamn _eyes._ Tony literally throws his hands in the air. _Yeah pal, you still got it,_ Bucky thinks, and looks at the fingernails on his flesh hand.

“Tony, If I see a situation pointed south, I’m not gonna just ignore it. If it’s important enough for me to come out of retirement to help, then it’ll be important enough for me to face the consequences.”

“I don’t know, Steve,” Sam says, reluctantly. “These restrictions don’t seem unreasonable to me. Listen, man, you missed out on Vietnam. You missed the Iraq War. I’m not sure you really appreciate that sometimes we’re the ones who need to be stopped.”

Bucky (who can very deeply appreciate that point) glances up. Tony waves at Sam and stares at Steve like _see? You see my point??_

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s a bad agreement, I just know in my heart that I can’t sign it myself.”

“You make no goddamn sense,” Tony rages.

“I became Captain America because someone in another country was being a bully, and I _needed_ to get there and help out any way I could. If I sign this paper, I’m giving away my right to _do what I became Captain America to do.”_ Steve frowns. “What’s the point of that?”

“The point is to show support for legislation that’s going to make the world a better place!” Tony shouts.

Bucky sighs. This argument is starting to go in circles.

“I’m not asking anyone else to _not sign,”_ Steve says.

“Okay then,” Bucky says, before snatching up the pen and scrawling his name at the top of the sign sheet. _James Buchanan Barnes_ in his old-fashioned cursive. He looks up and finds everyone is staring, even Steve. He’s the only one who doesn’t look surprised. He’s got a little smile on his smart mouth, because he gets it.

Bucky has been pretty fucking adamant about the clauses stating that _no enhanced person may be impelled to serve in the armed forces because of their enhanced status._ He and Nat had a lot of input on the sections about coercion, brainwashing, and mind control.

Bucky caps the pen, drops it back on the page, and stands up. “Good to go?” he asks Steve.

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“Alright, old man. If you’re retired now, you got no business in Avengers Tower.” Bucky holds out his hand to Steve.

Steve takes it. They leave together.

 

* * *

 

“I think it’s good,” Sam says, the next day. He agreed to meet with Steve at the Avengers Tower coffee bar because anywhere else, people start staring. Of course, here it seems like the baristas are under strict instructions to write _Captain Dumbass_ instead of _Steve,_ but Steve can understand Tony's irritation.

“You signed,” Steve says.

“Yeah, I did,” Sam agrees. “But Wanda didn’t. Clint didn’t. None of Pym’s people did.” Sam sips his latte. “I think it’s good,” he says again. “There should be other options, you know? If you’re a super, you want to be a hero, it shouldn’t be a case of ‘join the Avengers or go to prison.’ There should be a middle ground there. Something other than the Avengers.”

“Vigilante justice?” Steve says.

“I was thinking more _good Samaritan,”_ Sam says. “You planning to put on a cape and run around the city punching bad guys?”

“I am not planning to put on a cape,” Steve says, very carefully.

“Man, Barnes is a braver dude than me.” Sam shakes his head, laughing a little. Then his expression turns more serious. “What about the shield? Gonna hang it on your wall? Keep the suit in your closet? Just in case?”

Steve’s brow furrows a little. “No,” he says firmly. “No, I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Uh oh.” Sam sips his coffee

Steve rolls his eyes. “The shield isn’t mine, you know? It belongs to Captain America.”

“Steve, I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but you _are_ Captain America.”

Steve gives Sam a flat look. “I’m really not,” and his tone is apparently serious enough that it makes Sam stop kidding around and listen — really listen to what Steve is saying.

“What do you mean?” Sam asks. “When you say you aren’t Captain America — if not you…”

“It’s not like you and Falcon. Falcon is Sam Wilson’s codename. Cap is kind of his own thing.” Steve tries to explain. “He’s got his own life. When Steve Rogers died in 1945, Captain America kept going, you know? It’s incredible, the way he kept going, the way people looked up to him.”

“They look up to _you,_ Steve.”

“Maybe, but that’s not…” Steve sighs. “They look up to Captain America because he’s always gonna stand for freedom, against tyranny and fear. He’s always gonna stand up for the little guy. He’s always gonna work hard and he’s always gonna help people who need help. He’s everything good about America. But he’s never gonna vote. He’s not a citizen. He’s never gonna endorse a candidate or — god forbid — run for office. He’s never gonna get married, he doesn’t have a soulmate, he’s never gonna be _off duty._ Because he’s not a _person._ ”

“Ah,” Sam says, getting it.

“I’ve been Captain America ever since I woke up. And it was good at first, it gave me something to do, but…”

“You’re ready to be Steve again?” Sam says.

Steve swallows, and nods. “It’s not just that, though. I became Captain America because I wanted to help people. I went to war to help people. But that war is over, and I think… It feels like I’m not helping, _because_ I’m Captain America.”

“You help,” Sam says, angry on Steve’s behalf. “You help so much, Steve—”

“Not as much as you could.”

Sam opens his mouth. He closes it. He opens and closes it a couple more times before he manages to squeak: “What?”

Steve sips his coffee. “You heard me.”

“You are shitting me,” Sam says. “Please, tell me this is an elaborate joke.”

“I never joke,” Steve lies.

“You were literally just going off about what a shitty gig it is and now you’re asking if I want it?”

“If you don’t want it, we’ll come up with something else. Retire the name maybe. I’ll give the suit to the Smithsonian. Fake my death, whatever.”

“Bucky would love that, wouldn’t he,” Sam says.

“Don’t think he hasn’t suggested it, I think he and Natasha have a whole plan for how to do exactly that. But I’m serious, Sam. Do you want to be Captain America?”

Sam stares at him for a long moment, mouth opening and closing. “I don’t want to be a cliche here, but... why me?”

“You can do so much more than I can,” Steve says. “I mean I already know you’ll be good at saving people. You’re pararescue, you’re already better at that than I am. And having a non-enhanced superhero running the Avengers in this day and age? It sends the right message. And Sam…” Steve scratches his chin. “I think I’m right about this… you’ll do so much good just by standing there. Won’t you?”

There’s something very complicated happening on Sam’s face. Steve wouldn’t recognize it except that he’s extremely familiar with every single permutation of Captain America-related emotion. The fact that he and Sam have a soulbond doesn’t hurt either. At first Sam looks like he already knows the answer is _yes_ — which implies that he has looked at his good friend Steve, and thought _I should be doing that._ And then he looks guilty — Steve’s still Catholic, so he knows what that looks like. And then the full weight of it visibly hits as Sam actually thinks about what it will mean to say yes. He’s been the Falcon, he’s already an Avenger, but Captain America is a whole other level of pressure and scrutiny and responsibility, and Sam knows it because he’s watched Steve carry that. Sam opens his mouth, then closes it and swallows.

“Take your time thinking about it, it’s entirely up to you,” Steve assures him. “You can say no. Part of me hopes you will, it’s not exactly something I’d wish on a friend. But, for my money, you’re the only one I’d trust with it.” Sam kinda looks like he might cry, and if he starts, so will Steve and Steve can’t have that. He takes a deep breath. “You’ll lift so many people up.”

Sam’s mouth quivers a little, but then his brows come together, like he’s thinking that through. _Wait._

Steve’s mouth twitches.

Sam’s expression goes from _deeply touched_ to _deeply horrified_ in one second flat. “That was the most atrocious dad joke I’ve ever heard. _Lift people up?_ Are you shitting me?”

Steve grins, eyes wide and innocent. “You’ve already lifted me up tons of times, pal.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky doesn’t read Steve’s statement until the morning after the press conference.

He couldn’t handle actually _going_ to the press conference. All those cameras and eyes give him anxiety like no one’s business. But Sam and Natasha were both there with Steve, so Bucky knew Steve would be fine. He came back from the conference fine, a little antsy maybe. Everyone said it went fine, but Steve was twitchy and weird all evening. Natasha (playing impromptu publicist) had put him on a strict news and social media blackout until the hubbub died down. Bucky figured Steve had just been chasing himself in mental circles figuring out all the ways people were misrepresenting his words.

So, to try and keep Steve distracted, Bucky doesn’t even think about reading the statement until the morning after the conference. Early dawn light is creeping through their curtains, filling their bedroom with a soft glow, and Steve is sleeping with his mouth open and his arm under Bucky’s pillow when Bucky pulls up the transcript of Steve’s statement on his phone. 

> _Good afternoon. I wanted to make a short statement._

“You pompous, dramatic ass,” Bucky murmurs. Steve snorts and starts to snore.

> _A lot of people have asked why Captain America won’t sign the Sokovia Accords. I don’t want to be misunderstood. I have worked hard with my colleagues on this document, trying to make it the best it can be._
> 
> _The Avengers have put in protections for enhanced persons, and in exchange accepted limitations, and that’s good. If the Avengers can’t accept limitations, they’re no better than the bad guys. I have faith that this document will be good for the world. I don’t want anyone to think otherwise._

“Brief statement, he says. You liar.”

Steve makes a vaguely questioning sound and rolls over, throwing his arm over Bucky’s middle. Bucky rubs Steve’s arm and Steve sighs happily against Bucky’s collarbone and starts snoring again.

Bucky keeps reading.

> _But before I was an Avenger, I was Steve Rogers, and despite my reputation, Steve Rogers is just a guy who never really belonged anywhere. I grew up an outsider: poor and disabled and the child of immigrants. I joined the army trying to find my place and then discovered I didn’t quite fit in there either. As any one of my commanding officers will tell you, I’m not great at following orders. Which is probably why I’m still a Captain after seventy years of service._
> 
> _I’m just a guy, and in working on this document, I learned that I’m the kind of guy who can’t accept the limitations laid out by the Accords. I’m not special, and I am not exempt from the rules. Anyone who can’t accept limitations has no business being an Avenger._
> 
> _People call me the First Avenger. But the Avengers are bigger than me. Captain America is bigger than just one man. Maybe Steve Rogers can’t sign the Accords, but I assure you, they have the full support of my good friend, Captain America. I could not hand the title to a better successor than Sam Wilson._

Bucky turns off his phone screen and sets it aside. He turns his head a little and presses a kiss to Steve’s forehead.

“Proud of you,” Bucky whispers.

“Mm?” Steve’s still not really awake.

“Nothin’,” Bucky says, smiling. “Go back to sleep.”

Steve does.

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later, Steve brings the shield in to the Tower and offers it to Tony. “If I’m not going to sign,” he says, “then this doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

“Ugh,” Tony says. “I hate being handed things.”

“Tony,” Steve says, exasperated.

“No, I’m serious. Keep it. It’s an antique. It’s obsolete. I’m already making a new one because _someone_ has more refined taste than you. So what would I do with that? Hang it on the wall?” Tony shudders dramatically. “No thanks. Now, if Barnes ever feels like donating his arm to science, _then_ come talk to me.”

“Tony,” Steve says, his exasperation increasing.

“I know, I know, don’t mess with your boo, it makes your brain short-circuit.” Tony doesn’t even look up from the incomprehensible piece of machinery he’s working on. “I know how the soulmate deal works.”

The spot between Steve’s shoulders prickles a little. Pepper and Tony are still “taking a break” but Tony’s been taking positive steps towards becoming a more functional human. He hasn’t had a drink since that day at Steve’s. He’s been seeing an actual therapist instead of just hanging out on Bruce’s still empty floor. Instead of going to parties, he’s got some kind of internship program running with the local high schools. Steve keeps bumping into this kid called Peter running errands around the labs, along with some very bored-looking girl called Michelle and an even younger kid called Miles.

And Steve and Tony are on speaking terms, at least. But things are still raw, between them. They haven’t talked about that night, about what was said, and the things they _haven’t_ said.

Something sparks under Tony’s hands. He doesn’t even flinch. “You need something else, Cap?”

“We have matching marks,” Steve blurts.

Tony freezes.

Steve can feel the flush creeping up his neck “Or. We did. Bucky and me. Perfectly matched.”

Tony looks up at him with one brow raised. “Tell me, Captain, are you familiar with the concept of _TMI?”_

Steve looks at a spot several feet over Tony’s head. “I’m trying to _explain._ When we were kids, we found out we had _the exact same mark,_ in the _exact same spot._ I don’t know what the odds are on that—”

“Astronomical,” Tony tells him.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“So was there a point to you sharing this incredibly personal detail that I absolutely did not need to have?” Tony asks. “Or are you just trying to figure out what will make me uncomfortable, because let me tell you—”

“I’m trying to say that there are soulmates and then there are soulmates, and I know that you all have lots of different _categories_ here in the future, but it doesn’t matter to me. I _know_ soulmates. And if I didn’t realize sooner, I’m sorry about that.”

Tony’s expression goes guarded but he doesn’t say anything.

Steve grimaces a little, because this is turning into a Speech, but it can’t be helped now. “For the record, I think you and Pepper will work things out. I think you’re meant for each other. But even if things _don’t_ work out… you’ve still got me. And… after all the blankets and repair work, you’ve got Bucky too.”

Steve can see that Tony is putting it together. Because if he and Steve are compatible, and Steve and Bucky are a perfect match — A=B and B=C, so…

“Why Steven,” Tony says, and Steve can tell that Tony is moved despite himself, because he’s about to say something _really horrible_ to cover up the fact that he just had a _feeling_ about it. “Are you suggesting a three way?”

Steve’s face goes _beet_ red. _“Tony!”_

“Because I’m not _un_ interested, per se—”

“That is not what I meant and you know it! I meant _friends_ , I meant—”

“—but when I said I wanted to get a closer look at Barnes’ arm, I didn’t mean like—”

“TONY!”

 

* * *

 

 

The Avengers all go to Vienna for the signing. Steve (who is no longer an Avenger) and Bucky (who could be an Avenger, but currently has no interest in becoming one) watch the coverage from home in Brooklyn. Not exactly thrilling TV, but they let it play in the background while they go about their daily. Steve wants to watch Sam’s speech.

They’re eating popcorn when he takes the stand.

_“We are here today with the same goal. No matter where we’re coming from, or where we’re hoping to go, this much at least, is common ground: we want to make the world a better place.”_

“Speak for yourself, I don’t give a shit,” Bucky mumbles and gets poked in the ribs. He elbows Steve without looking.

_“Two years ago, I was just... a normal guy, minding my own business, doing my usual morning run when this complete idiot comes belting past me going about 900 miles an hour on his own two legs.”_

Steve throws a piece of popcorn at the screen while Bucky laughs and laughs and laughs.

_“Two days later, I was on my way to becoming an Avenger. Just a veteran with a some specialist training and a can-do attitude you know? I’m no supersoldier. Can’t shoot lasers outta my eyes or shrink myself, or talk to birds or anything. Just a guy and his jetpack. People call me a superhero, I don’t know about that. People tell me I’m an Avenger, which I guess I am now. But before any of that, I was just a guy, making friends with this really weird dude called Steve.”_

“Yeesh, him too, huh. You’re like a vortex pal, pulling in poor bastards like us and spitting out superheroes.”

“Hush,” Steve says.

_“The point is that anyone can be an Avenger. Superheroes aren’t other. We’re not the enemy. We’re just coming from a slightly different place, hoping to make the world a little better. And I think — I genuinely believe that with this document, we’re taking a step in the right direction. I know my friend Steve agrees with me. And wherever he is, I hope the old man is enjoying his retirement.”_

Bucky tackles Steve then, and misses the rest of Sam’s speech to a slap fight that turns into a wrestling match that turns into a makeout session. At some point they hit the mute button and they’re just kind of lying across the couch, Bucky stretched out on Steve because he really is a cat. “So. Retirement, huh?”

“Yup,” Steve says, popping the p and completely failing to hide his burgeoning panic at the idea.

“I’ll walk you through it,” Bucky assures him. “One step at a time.”

“Till the end of the line?” Steve says, grinning.

“You corny bastard. I can’t even look at you right now, you’re disgusting.”

 

Eventually, they turn the sound back on just in time for the King of Wakanda to make a speech.

That’s when the UN building explodes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

###  **v - homam: the high minded man**

_You are a good man with a good heart. You carry the mantle of a king on your very skin, but it is hard for a good man to be king._

_\- King T’Chaka_

 

 

 

Sam chases down the bastard responsible in twenty minutes flat. He’s got a new shield Tony made him strapped over the wings, and he looks real sharp in the red, white, and blue. He takes a damn good photo too, as he’s bringing the guy in with no casualties and no stress to the local authorities.

The terrorist’s name is Zemo, and he’s Sokovian, because it seems like the Avengers will be carrying that albatross for a good while yet. Still: the first post-Accords Avengers mission goes so smoothly it might as well be on rails.

Bucky is. Disgusted.

What kind of plan was that? Blow up the UN summit, pin it on Bucky. Then what? Did he really think that Bucky — the Winter goddamn Soldier — _wouldn’t have an exit strategy?_ Barring some Steve Rogers level superhero interference, there’s no way that the police would be able to corner Bucky. And even if, through some incredibly catastrophic series of events, they _did_ catch Barnes, so what? Like there was a cage in the world that could hold Bucky if he didn’t want to be held. And Zemo thought he could take down _the Avengers_ with a plan like _that?_

Amateur hour. Jesus.

He could forgive the guy for not realizing that the Winter Soldier wasn’t in Europe. Nat’s been laying a pretty convincing trail for him all across Romania. The facial prosthesis was _okay,_ but that story just isn’t going to hold up if Steven Grant Rogers calls you on the phone and says: “No, Sir, your Majesty, it definitely wasn’t him. He’s been here in Brooklyn with me all day.”

It’s just a shame that a good man had to die like that, all for nothing. Bucky can see from the set of Steve’s jaw how much he hates it, how much he wishes he could do something to make it better. Bucky knows there’s nothing to be done.

After the very awkward phone call with the soon-to-be King of Wakanda, Steve calls Tony to check in with how things are going because he has never, not once in his life, been able to help himself, but he doesn’t want to bother Sam, who’s busy doing actually important things like cleanup.

“No,” Steve is telling Tony. “You could _not_ do cleanup.” He casts a glance sideways at Bucky. It’s his patented _save me from the Starks_ look. Bucky hides a smile behind his tablet. Those two may be soulmark-compatible, but it’s a compatibility built on how _different_ they are, not on how _the same_ they are.

“Ton—” Steve pauses, and pinches the bridge of his nose and waits for Stark to finish whatever mile-a-minute ramble he’s on. “T’Challa is not actually a cat, and Sam is not actually a bird, they’re gonna get along fine.” Another pause. “Well if you know that then why do you keep being a—”

Then Steve’s brows come together sharply. Bucky feels a twinge of suspicion that isn’t his and gives Steve a questioning look. Steve takes the phone away from his ear and hits speakerphone.

“Say that again,” Steve says, cutting Stark off mid-word. He sets the phone down on the kitchen island and Bucky gets up from the couch to join him there.

“Geeze I thought the serum would keep you from losing your hearing in your old age. I _said,”_ and Stark draws the word out for several syllables, “that I could have taken the meeting myself if it weren’t for family histories, you know? His granddad, my dad, it’s all very Montagues and Capulets. Maybe Tesla and Edison? That’s not really a good comparison. There isn’t really a good comparison. Azzuri and Stark, it should be its own thing.”

Bucky frowns at Steve, who frowns back. He didn’t know that Howard even _knew_ the previous king of Wakanda.

“What do you mean by that?” Steve asks.

“Vibranium doesn’t grow on trees, Steven,” Tony says. “Where did you _think_ dear old dad got it?”

Steve and Bucky exchange a look across the kitchen island. They’d never really thought about that, neither of them. It was _war._ All they cared about was how the vibranium _worked._

“Tell me,” Steve says, in that dangerous voice that means he already doesn’t like what he’s about to hear.

“He started buying up every piece of vibranium he could find when he was 21, right after Hitler yoinked Austria. He didn’t want the Nazis getting their hands on the stuff. Trouble is, official policy of Wakanda is that all vibranium outside their borders is considered _stolen_ vibranium. They’re pretty intense about that. Before the whole Klaue/Sokovia situation, we were pretty sure that dad had gotten every scrap of vibranium in the world. So, Azzuri came to him in… ‘42? ‘43 maybe? And said ‘hey that’s mine’ and Dad said ‘finders keepers’ and freaking _kept it.”_ Tony makes a tsking sound. “There was a very nice protest poster from the 70s with a picture of Howie boy with the Wakandan _thief_ brand splashed across his face.”

“How did I not know this before?” Steve blurts out angrily. His hands are in fists on the countertop.

“Hey,” Tony says, just as sharp. He doesn’t respond well to people snapping at him, and Steve is nothing if not snappish. _“You_ never asked. I assumed you knew. Dad didn’t tell you?”

“We were a little busy at the time,” Steve says. “Hitler was _yeeting_ bombs at London, so.”

Tony barks out a laugh. “Ohhhhohoho that’s weird. Never say that again.” There’s a thunk on the other end of the line. “Listen, I gotta go do Avengers things, and since you’re _not_ an Avenger anymore?”

“Yeah sorry, thanks for the updates, Tony.”

The line clicks off. Steve leans hard on the counter and looks up at Bucky, his eyes all blue and huge and his jaw set…

Bucky sighs, knowing exactly what’s coming.

“I need to go to Vienna,” Steve says.

“Yeah I figured,” Bucky says. He feels a little jealous. Steve can get rid of his. Bucky flexes the fingers on his metal hand. “You sure about this? He just lost his father, he probably doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“I can call and ask, right?” Steve says.

“Sure. Just respect his answer if the answer is _fuck off.”_

“God, Bucky _of course,_ but…” Then Steve casts Bucky an agonized look that says _I don’t want to leave you alone but you can’t come with me because you need to be where people know you are and I hate that._

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Me and Pepper will have a sleepover at the Tower, paint each other’s toenails. It’ll be fun. Don’t worry about me. Go on, do the right thing. You always do.”

 

* * *

 

 

T’Challa agrees (via a personal secretary of some kind) to meet with Steve the day before he is due to return to Wakanda for his father's funeral and his own coronation. He arrives at the hotel early, and gets sent right up. Outside the King’s rooms, a woman with a shaved head and a stance that reminds him strongly of Natasha gives him a cold look and says: “Who are you?”

For a minute Steve is thrown. “Steve Rogers, Ma’am. I have an appointment with King T’Challa.”

“Coronation is next week,” the lady says. She looks down at the case in his hands. “What’s in the case?”

Steve looks down at the very large and very round case in his hands. Does she not… know who he is? He opens the case and shows her. She looks extremely unimpressed. “You planning to take that in there, Captain?”

Of course she knows who he is. She’s a royal guard, she’d have been briefed even if she didn’t know him by sight. Steve nods, a little embarrassed. “Yes Ma’am. If you don’t mind. I know it’s a security risk.”

She gives him one slow, cat-like blink and smiles at him like he’s real cute. It occurs to Steve that this woman is _fucking with him._ He _likes_ her. “You can leave the case.” She jerks her head at the door. “He’s expecting you.”

Steve goes on in.

The Crown Prince is standing with his back to the door, looking out at the Vienna skyline. He turns at the sound of the door opening and Steve feels an immediate surge of liking. A sense of connection —

Oh.

It reminds him of the time he’d first seen Sam — and then Steve sees T’Challa’s brows go up, and Steve just… he just _knows_ that T’Challa had the exact same reaction just now. That recognition. The connection.

Huh _._

Steve would not expect to have a reaction like that from anyone whose senses weren’t enhanced by, oh, say, the superserum. Or something similar.

_Huh._

“Captain Rogers,” T’Challa says, recovering. “It’s an honor.”

“Honor’s mine, Your Majesty,” Steve says, not quite sure whether to bow or not. He settles on a respectful little nod. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He seemed like a good man.”

“Thank you. He was,” T’Challa says. “He may not be here, but he is still with me. This I believe.”

Steve wishes he still had faith like that. These days he just _misses_ people, and it gets no easier the older he is. “I’m glad for that,” Steve says. “I won’t intrude, but I wanted to return this,” he says, and—

He swings the shield up, holding it out between them so the battered paint and dull sheen catches the light.

“Oh is this mine?” T’Challa asks, mild but with a… certain tone. It reminds Steve of the guard out in the hall, and he wonders if he’s being fucked with again. There’s a challenge there, but there’s also amusement lurking in the corner of the Crown Prince’s mouth. “It must have been missing for some time.”

Steve ducks his head, a little sheepish, then looks up. “I don’t mean this as an excuse, but when it was given to me, I didn’t know where the vibranium came from. Now I know.”

T’Challa’s expression has gone serious. “It was war. People did things they had no business being proud of.”

“That doesn’t make it okay, but you know that. Anyway.” He takes a little breath and says: “It doesn’t seem right for me to keep it. I know this isn’t gonna make us square or anything but…” He doesn’t know how to say this. No one seems to understand. “The shield doesn’t belong to me. Not really. Sam’s got his own thing, it’s not like he needs it, or wants it. If you don’t want it, I’m sending it to the Smithsonian. But I thought… it deserves to go home?” He winces a little at how sentimental that sounds. It’s a _shield._ “It should be somewhere it belongs.”

T’Challa considers him, brows furrowed and brown eyes wise beyond his years. He hesitates only a moment longer before taking the shield. The weight lifts out of his hands and Steve lets out a breath.

“Thank you, Captain.”

Steve winces. “Call me Steve, please.” He clears his throat. “Well, thank you for seeing me, Your Majesty, I’ll just…”

“I am curious,” T’Challa says, as Steve starts to turn away. Steve feels caught, and turns back to find the king smiling at him, curiously. “You say the shield should be where it belongs. Where does someone like yourself belong, I wonder.”

And well. Ain’t that a kick to the head. “Huh,” Steve says, with a half smile. “Well, your majesty, in my case it’s not so much a _where_ as a _when._ ” He shrugs one shoulder. _Such is life._ “Luckily it’s also a _who with.”_

T’Challa smiles and nods. “I see. And how is Sergeant Barnes?”

The surge of protectiveness that Steve feels is… not unexpected at this point. “As well as can be expected, under the circumstances,” he says, a little wary.

The king lifts a hand. “I do not mean to pry. But I was curious. You see, for many years now, my people have been having a debate. About whether we ought to join the world. This was what brought my father to the UN summit. Investigating the possibility.”

Steve feels his eyebrows go up. “I didn’t know that was on the table.”

“Nothing has been decided. It’s a complex issue. This,” he lifts the shield, “has come up on both sides of the argument.” Carefully, he lays the shield aside. It rings slightly when he places it on the coffee table. “‘Oh the vibranium will be used to make weapons of war!’ and ‘Oh, the vibranium will be used to make the world a better place!’ It’s a real conundrum.”

Steve frowns. He must be talking about the Sokovia vibranium — the vibranium that Klaue stole. Right? Does Wakanda _have_ more vibranium than that? “I... can see how it would be, especially after Sokovia.”

T’Challa turns back to Steve. “Since long before then.” He folds his arms and regards Steve. “Since 2014, your friend has come up in that argument as well.”

“Oh?” Steve says. And then, alarm blooms in his chest. Panic. “ _Oh._ You know he can’t give the arm back,” he says, rapidly. “He _would,_ if he could, but it’s wired into his spine, and he can’t—”

“Peace,” T’Challa says soothingly, lifting his hands. “That is not what I meant.”

Steve’s shoulders relax slightly. He believes this man, and he’s pretty sure he knows why.

“What I meant was, my people have been going around in circles for centuries, having this conversation with ourselves. I have been considering whether or not it is time to bring a few trusted outsiders into that conversation. Advisors, if you will, to give us new perspectives on the world we are considering becoming a part of.” He gives Steve an expectant look.

“Oh,” Steve says. His eyes widen. “ _Oh._ I’d be honored to help any way I can,” Steve says at once. “I’m sure Bucky would too, but I don’t know about… what exactly are you proposing, your Majesty?”

T’Challa rubs his chin. “In the bluntest terms? I am looking for people I can trust. My own people, I already know. But outside Wakanda? No one. You...” T’Challa’s expression goes canny, almost calculating. “You I trust, I think. My general would be furious to hear me say so, but I would like to invite you to come to Wakanda. More than your shield, I would appreciate your judgment. And your friend’s, as well. Between the two of you, I believe you have seen the best and the worst of what the outside world has to offer.”

Steve stares, unsure. His gut instinct is to say yes. He finds that he trusts this man too, but he’s not sure he should. And on top of that, he’s only _just retired,_ he’d been thinking he’d have time to relax. And maybe he’d been dreading that a little, living in fear of having _nothing to do,_ but he’d also been looking forward to it, before… well, before this whole mess happened and they had to reveal that Bucky was staying with Steve.

“Do not answer right away,” T’Challa says. “I have much to attend to in my own country, and you have much to discuss with Sergeant Barnes.”

“Yes,” Steve says. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Steve gets back to Bucky and Brooklyn, it’s gotten out that he’s been sheltering the Winter Soldier. Bucky’s signature on the Accords means that they can’t convict him for the crimes Hydra committed with his body, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hydra committed some pretty awful crimes with his body, and he’s gotta live with that.

He’s also gotta live with reporters outside of Steve’s door morning, noon and night.

The headlines are _vicious._ Of course they are. It’s not like the 21st century invented muckraking, Bucky knew this was coming. They jumped straight from “Winter Soldier is James Buchanan Barnes” to “Captain America Harboring Soviet Assassin” to “Rogers and Barnes: Soulmates?” and the inevitable “Captain America Trapped in Soulmate Bond with Violent Traitor!”

And hell, at least it’s not the queer thing — or at least now when someone brings up the queer thing a whole wave of very vocal supporters come out of the woodwork. Bucky’s not sure how he feels about all that. There’s a whole separate branch of discourse because people in “the LGBT community” are pretty disappointed that he and Steve aren’t the shiny perfect WWII Queer Icons they would’ve wanted.

It’s not his _fault_ that HYDRA swallowed him whole. It’s not his _fault_ that he came out the other end of it bloodsoaked but still unfortunately alive. He’s just gotten himself around to being _glad_ that he didn’t die in that fucking ravine and now there’s all these people on both sides of the argument wishing he _had._

Fuck them, honestly.

“Come on, Buck,” Steve wheedles. It’s late. Maybe it’s early. Bucky’s been awake too long to be sure. “You gotta sleep, pal.”

“I can _hear them,”_ Bucky hisses. He’s sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, hair hanging lankly down. That’s the thing about being who and what they are: soundproofing doesn’t do much for them.

“I know. They just want pictures, and a story. They ain’t gonna hurt you.” Bucky hears him come a few steps closer to the couch. He _also_ hears someone outside laughing.

“You don’t know that,” Bucky says, without looking up.

Steve sighs. The couch dips as he takes the seat next to Bucky. “Okay, fine, I don’t know that. But I know they’re gonna have to go through me to get to you.”

Bucky huffs. “Other way around.” He leans against Steve, then turns his head to press his face into Steve’s shoulder. “I hate this,” he mumbles.

“I know.”

“I wanted more _time_ with you,” he complains. “Just us.”

“Me too,” Steve says.

The bitch of the situation is that there’s nowhere they can go where they aren’t going to be hounded by reporters. It’ll probably be months, maybe years before the frenzy dies down. And even then, it’s never going to be like it was. They’re always going to be newsworthy. Steve was Captain America. Bucky was the Winter Soldier. That’s never gonna change.

Steve puts his hand over the space between Bucky’s shoulder blades. The calm spreads through Bucky, thick and warm like taffy. He fumbles his hand up and puts it over Steve’s mark, too. They slump into each other. Steve’s chin rests on top of Bucky’s skull, and Bucky breathes in the smell of Steve’s skin.

Before the war, in Brooklyn, when Bucky touched Steve, he had said it felt like someone slowly turning up the volume under his skin, until the buzzing became unbearable and he had to _do something_. Bucky hadn’t really gotten that until after Azzano. After Azzano, it had been the reverse, Steve had been carrying so much — when Bucky touched him he could take a load off. And Bucky had been like a cat, only able to stand being petted for a little while before needing to go off and prowl.

For the first time in a hundred years, it feels like they’re on the same page, settled into the same groove. Despite the mess, despite the reporters, it feels like they’re both finally home, at the same time, in the same place.

“It’s worth it,” Steve says. “Isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” Bucky mumbles with his face still more than half mashed into Steve’s shoulder.

They’ve been without long enough. Bucky will put up with any amount of bullshit if it means he gets to keep Steve Rogers.

 

So _of course_ Steve’s phone goes off the next goddamn morning, and that’s when they get the news about Peggy.

 

* * *

 

 

After the funeral, Steve drags himself into the bed at their hotel room and doesn’t drag himself out again for twelve hours. He lies there long after he’s woken up, staring at the wall and feeling like he’s waking up in 2011 all over again.

It’s stupid.

She lived a full life, he tries to remind himself. She wasn’t afraid to die, she never had been. She had her regrets, she made her peace with them, she moved on. Why can’t he? What would he have done differently? What could he have done, with more time?

He can’t help thinking back to his meeting with T’Challa. _He is still with me._ With Peggy, all Steve can feel is the absence.

The bed dips behind him and the covers pull back. He hears the thud of a pair of boots hitting the floor by the bed, and then a moment later, Bucky’s warm weight at his back.

“What time is it?” Steve asks.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bucky tells him. “You hungry?” he asks.

“No.”

“Okay.” A gentle kiss presses against Steve’s shoulder. “You still gotta eat though. Twenty minutes until the soup is done. I can bring it to you, but you’ll feel better if you get out of bed and eat at the table. Don’t know why that works, but it does.”

Steve turns his face into the pillow. If Bucky weren’t here, would he be stuck here alone? Morbidly, Steve tries to imagine what that would be like. Would he just wallow here?

No, he knows himself. He can only allow himself to be this weak because Bucky’s here to carry him.

Steve reaches around and grabs Bucky’s metal hand, pulls it around his waist and up to his chest so Bucky has no choice but to curl in behind him. Bucky’s face nuzzles the back of Steve’s neck. Steve sighs and goes even more limp when Bucky presses a soft kiss to the back of Steve’s shirt, over his mark.

“Twenty minutes?” Steve repeats.

“Yeah.”

Steve closes his eyes and lets himself be weak for twenty more minutes.

 

* * *

 

 

As bad as the paparazzi in New York were, the photographers in London are a thousand times worse. It’s such a relief to be on the plane. At least there Bucky doesn’t have to be constantly tracking a dozen men with cameras clicking like cocked pistols.

But then they get back to New York and find that it’s like the American reporters have upped their game to match. They get out of the car and are immediately swarmed as they try to get to their front door.

_“Captain Rogers, Captain Rogers, what did Peggy Carter think of you and Sergeant Barnes?”_

_“What do you think of the Senators pushing to withdraw from the Accords so they can put Sergeant Barnes on trial?”_

_“Captain Rogers, given the unrest in Wakanda—”_

“The unrest in Wakanda?” Steve snaps, his head coming up and honing in on the reporter who had shouted that particular question.

Bucky grabs his arm before he can do anything stupider than that and pulls him into their building. He locks the door. He hears the gentle chime that means the extra security measures he and Stark installed are engaged and giving the all clear.

“What happened in Wakanda?” Steve asks.

“Internal unrest. Rogue US intelligence agent playing at being a pretender to the throne. T’Challa was supposed dead for like, six hours, maybe twelve. He took care of it.”

“What?” Steve shouts.

“T’Challa took care of it,” Bucky repeats, in a soothing voice. “He’s fine, they’re all fine.”

Steve chews his lip. “I’d have liked to help,” he mumbles.

Bucky puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezes. “Funerals are one of those times you get to call in sick. Plus? He really didn’t need your help, pal.”

In the moment of silence that follows, they both hear the paparazzi outside clicking their cameras, hoping to get a lucky shot. Bucky knows he’s going to pay for that in the morning. There will be pictures of him dragging Steve inside on every tabloid in the country. “Ex-Captain’s Abusive Lover” or something like that. Not that he and Steve have confirmed or denied anything. They just want to be left alone.

Fat chance of that.

Bucky pinches his nose and listens to the reporters outside talking excitedly.

“Sorry,” Steve says. “I know we’re not supposed to engage.”

“No, I should’ve warned you about the Wakanda thing. I just… Didn’t think any of them were smart enough to use that to get a rise out of you.” He can feel a headache building.

Steve’s palm slips into Bucky’s free hand. He squeezes gently. “Sort of hoped retirement would be more… restful.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Ain’t nothing restful for us. Makes you reconsider coming out of the ice, doesn’t it.”

It’d be funnier if it were less true.

 

* * *

 

 

The morning after, a small and unassuming man who is very clearly an agent of some kind knocks on their door and asks if they wouldn’t mind coming with him. Bucky looks pale as they get ready to go, but he doesn’t stash any guns or knives on his body. Steve watches him to make sure.

Before they go down to join Agent Ross, Steve grabs Bucky, reels him in for a hug, and then kisses him square on the mouth, holding his face between his two big hands. “The Accords protect us too,” he says. The protections apply to everyone equally, whether they signed the thing or not. The Avengers agreed to enforce those protections, that’s part of the deal.

“And more importantly, we’ll kill anyone who tries to separate us,” Bucky adds.

“Yeah, and that,” Steve agrees.

 

But Agent Ross just brings them to a nice hotel suite and it turns out that T’Challa is there, looking a little tired, but pleased to see them. “I hope you will forgive the subterfuge, Captain, Sergeant. I am told that I need to get better at keeping a low profile.”

In the background, Steve sees Agent Ross make a face as he lets himself out.

“It’s fine,” Steve says.

Bucky is standing just behind Steve, and his eyes are scanning all around the apartment. He doesn’t say anything, but that’s not exactly unusual.

“I hear you had some trouble in Wakanda?” Steve says. “The reports were a little confused. I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

“Yes,” T’Challa smiles thinly. “The reports of my death were somewhat premature.”

Bucky snorts.

Steve elbows him, because _he’s a_ king, _Bucky, geeze._

“Sorry,” Bucky says. “Welcome to the club, though,” he adds, because he’s a little shit.

Steve _adores_ him.

T’Challa is already laughing. “You—you I like,” he says to Bucky.

Bucky is actually smiling, which is pretty unusual for Bucky. It makes Steve just that little bit more sure, but there’s no point thinking about it right now. He’s always had to let this stuff play out naturally.

“Did the Captain tell you about my request, back in Vienna?” T’Challa asks.

“He may have mentioned something about it, yeah. I’d be happy to give my two cents on what people do with vibranium…” He flexes the arm a little. “I gotta tell ya, I’d give you the whole damn arm back if I could—”

“We could help you with that,” T’Challa says, very calm and confident. “If you want.”

Bucky stares. He and Steve exchange a look. Wakanda is a mysterious place, yes, very remote. He’s sure it’s lovely, but if all of Stark’s horses and all of Stark’s men couldn’t get Bucky’s arm off, he’s not sure what a nation best known for their skill with _textiles_ could do…

T’Challa lifts a finger, like he knows what they’re thinking. “Come to Wakanda with me,” he says, smirking a little. “I think we will surprise you.”

 

He ain’t wrong about that.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vi - lupus: the wolf**

_“The nitrogen in our DNA, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies, the soulmarks we all carry were written with ink brewed in the hearts of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”_

_\- Carl Sagan_

 

 

 

“Holy cow,” Bucky says, when they get on the little plane that’s quieter, faster, and _more invisible_ than a quinjet.

 

“Holy _cow,”_ Bucky says, when T’Challa brings them through the dome to fly over Birnin Zana.

 

_“Holy cow,”_ Bucky says, when their tour ends in a lab run by (yet another) tiny genius.

“We don’t have any of those,” Shuri tells him. “Only Holy Panthers, Rhinos, Crocodiles, and Gorillas. If you want holy cows, you’re going to have to visit the Fulani.”

Bucky looks more than a little in love. It takes about two minutes for Shuri to offer him a job as a lab assistant. Steve has to hide his smile.

 

Meanwhile, Steve’s got a job of his own.

He spends more than half his time sitting and listening in on council meetings, and never speaking until the moment when all of the council turns to look directly at him and someone asks a question about the UN, or America’s history, or what he thinks of the current state of political affairs. Sometimes Steve gets a little moment of vertigo where he feels  5 foot 4 again, but then it all rights itself and he speaks. After working on the Accords, he really _is_ an expert on international law now, with an unofficial specialty in how the law interacts with enhanced persons. Turns out that’s a real hot commodity here in Wakanda.

Agent Ross is frequently there, but he does still work for the US government, and sometimes they want him somewhere else, so Steve ends up being the main consultant for the Wakandan throne as they negotiate the terms of their joining the world.

 

Before they know it, Steve and Bucky have an apartment in Birnin Zana. There’s a little park by the lake where they like to go jogging and then splash their feet in the water. Bucky’s made friends with a lady who lives next to the park and has really unmanageable goats.

Bucky gets to be really good friends with Shuri, and through her, Ramonda, which leads to Steve and Bucky getting an invite to the King’s wedding when he and Nakia decide to tie the knot.

Steve’s just about to start panicking because he doesn’t have anything nice to wear when Ramonda pulls him aside and explains that Wakandan weddings aren’t like that. There will be a formal event eventually, so the people of Wakanda have a chance to celebrate with their king and new queen. This is just a personal celebration, for family and friends, and it’s all very informal.

Wakandans (like the Ancient Egyptians, according to Bucky) don’t have a wedding ceremony in their religion; a couple is considered to be married when they move in together.

After moving the eighth heavy box of the morning, Steve begins to suspect that he’s been invited for his muscles more than his closeness to the royal family.

T’Challa and Nakia are having an extremely fond argument about where the new sofa should go when Steve notices a stranger standing in the doorway, holding a box from the moving van. His hair is short on the sides and back, longer on top with locs falling across his forehead. His skin is a shade or so paler than Nakia’s, but he also has the unmistakable air of someone who’s been ill. Very _very_ ill. Steve knows the look.

There’s something about the way he stands that makes Steve’s brain go _threat,_ but there’s something in his expression that reminds Steve so viscerally of Bucky that he kind of unconsciously seeks Bucky out with his eyes. Bucky’s with Shuri, who has a panel on his arm open. Again.

Then T’Challa sees the newcomer, breaks off the argument and practically vaults over the couch. Steve sees Bucky go a little tense, feels himself go a little tense, sees Okoye go _very_ tense, but T’Challa’s scolding voice is full of concern, not anger.

“What are you doing?” he says, taking the box. “You should not be carrying things, I didn’t think you were even allowed out of bed yet!”

“Nah I’m good,” New Guy says, his accent clearly American. “Didn’t want to uh. Miss things. Hi,” he says awkwardly to the rest of the group.

Some of them say hi back.

Many of them do not.

“Nephew,” Ramonda says, a little frostily.

So _this_ is N’Jadaka — the infamous usurping cousin. The one who nearly killed T’Challa. The one T’Challa saved from the brink of death, much to the dismay of Okoye. Steve still doesn’t know why T’Challa did that. Mercy is great and all, but it’s something else entirely to invite the guy who tried to kill you to your wedding.

He doesn’t _look_ much like a trained killer. He just looks tired. And sad.

“Hey auntie,” he says, very quiet and subdued. “T’Challa, Nakia. Just wanted to uh. Stop by and say congrats and all.” He waves vaguely to the door with a heavily implied _and now I’ll be on my way sorry for making this awkward._

“Stay,” T’Challa insists.

“Stay,” Nakia adds, from the other side of the room.

Okoye visibly _Does Not Agree_ but says nothing.

“Come, cousin, meet my friends.”

T’Challa pulls N’Jadaka into the room, towing him along. Poor kid looks deeply uncomfortable as T’Challa makes introductions with one hand on his shoulder. He keeps fidgeting, pulling his sleeves down over his hands and hunching his shoulders in.

“What’s he thinking?”

Steve jumps. He didn’t hear Bucky coming over, but there he is, right at Steve’s side. “Jesus, Buck, what the hell?”

Bucky’s icy pale eyes are on the newcomer. “Keeping him alive is a rookie mistake,” he says, low and quiet.

Steve shakes his head. “It’s a show of faith.”

Bucky gives him a sidelong look. “It’s something you would do,” he adds.

Steve returns the look. “Think I did, soldier.”

Bucky scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Like I said. Stupid.”

Steve hooks an arm around Bucky, and Bucky makes that wet-cat face that he always makes when Steve is affectionate in public. He likes it, secretly, Steve knows. But he has to make the wet cat face otherwise folks will forget that he’s the world’s most deadly assassin. “It’s different though,” Steve muses.

Bucky makes a grumpy, questioning sound.

Steve watches N’Jadaka trying to make himself smaller, standing between T’Challa and Nakia with his hands shoved way down in his pockets. He looks _uncertain,_ which doesn’t exactly match up with what Steve’s heard about the guy.

Is this the same guy who single handedly destabilized and took over the most technologically advanced nation in the world with a plastic bag full of dead criminal? What the hell happened to him to turn him from _that_ guy into _this_ guy with his shuffling steps and his wary eyes? That guy had been tireless, relentless, focused, convinced that he was doing right, and well… that’s the thing, isn’t it?

Steve tips his head from one side to the other. “He's dangerous, but he wasn’t wrong, either.”

He can practically feel Bucky cringing a little at that, because they both know that’s the big difference. What Bucky was made to do, all those years, it wasn’t his fault, but it was still _wrong._ Fact that it wasn’t his fault makes it _more_ wrong. Steve squeezes Bucky’s shoulders a little.

“His methods were pretty shitty,” Bucky says.

“So were some of ours,” Steve points out. “Even back in the day. It’s not like the Howlies were beacons of fair play and righteousness. Guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines doesn’t exactly lend itself to—”

“Yeah, but we were making those choices _with_ everyone else, not _for_ everyone else.”

“I know some Nazis who’d probably disagree with you, if they were alive,” Steve says mildly. “I’m pretty sure we didn’t consult with them before we made the choice to shoot them.”

“Asshole. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Steve does, and squeezes a little, pulling Bucky in under his arm. _With everyone else,_ for him and Bucky, meant the Howlies, and Peggy. Their soulmates — their _first_  soulmates. Every time Steve thinks he’s done missing them, he’s wrong.

But that’s not the point — the point is that when he was staring down the barrel of a difficult decision, he had more than his own moral compass to consult. He could check his findings with someone — with a whole passel of someones that he trusted. It wasn’t a unilateral decision. And with the Avengers later, it was the same thing, even before he knew that they were soulmates. And on an even grander scale, that’s what the Accords are all about. Trying to ensure that people are making decisions with each other, not for each other.

Steve shakes his head a little. “Doesn’t change the fact that he had a point. He knew it. T’Challa and Nakia know it too.” Steve’s getting to see firsthand the kind of aid that Wakanda can give, the kind of good they can do now because T’Challa and Nakia were wise enough to recognize that N’Jadaka had a good point.

“That doesn’t make it less of a rookie mistake.” Bucky gives him a Look. It’s his _Your Ideals Are Very Nice But We Live In The Real World_ Look.

“I’m sure T’Challa has good reason to trust N’Jadaka,” Steve says stoutly. Even if he can’t quite figure what they are just now.

 

* * *

 

 

They go to the formal, royal wedding too, a few weeks later — and N’Jadaka is there too.

Bucky gets a haircut — or, well, he gets Steve to cut his hair, like they used to back in the thirties, because no one around here knows what to do with hair like Bucky’s. Bucky wasn’t sure about it at first, but the thought of going to a royal wedding with his Winter Soldier hair felt wrong. And something feels right about watching the long locks falling to the tiles.

Steve’s face goes from intent concentration to an achingly sweet nostalgia as Bucky’s hair goes back in time. The sap spends a long time just running his fingers through the shorter locks. Bucky allows it, patiently, even though every minute Steve fiddles with his hair is another minute Bucky’s going to have to spend wrestling with products to get it looking halfway respectable.

And then Steve says _Buck…_ in that sweet, soft way he gets sometimes, and they get… a little distracted. For… a while. They’ve still got time to make time. So why not?

After that, Bucky borrows Steve’s razor and gives himself an extra close shave, and then the two of them put on their three piece suits and hurry down to the front of the palace, where the ceremony will be held.

Steve’s hair is a little mussed in back from having Bucky’s metal fist in it. He discreetly smoothes it a bit.

Anyway.

There’s a huge open space in front of the palace doors, a courtyard area like an amphitheater. Crowds are gathered at the edges, the people of Wakanda singing and dancing in a way that Bucky’s never seen before. The rhythm makes him want to tap his shoes. Steve catches him doing it and grins, but they don’t dance. They don’t know the steps, after all.

They stand to one side with Ross and the other guests who aren’t quite Wakandan. They’re situated behind and off to the side of the amphitheater area. Closer in are the royal families of the other tribes — even M’Baku and the Jabari are there, taking the place of honor recently vacated by the Border Tribe.

The ceremony is presided over by Ramonda, and a young fella Bucky doesn’t know who’s apparently “Uri, Son of Zuri.” The whole thing is long and involved and Bucky doesn’t speak enough Wakandan to really follow it.

But at the culmination, the King and his new Queen stand before the doors of the palace — now their home — and shrug off their mantles.

Bucky sees, for the first time, why they both seem so fond of high-necked robes. Nakia’s soulmark is a huge stormcloud across her shoulders. It’s a shade darker than her dark skin, heavy with the hope of rain. She looks like she’s carrying in on her back, like the weight of it might hold her down, but she stands tall and easy under the burden.

T’Challa’s soulmark is also a splash of black across his back and shoulders, speckled with paler spots, like a panther’s pelt—

Or like a night sky smeared with stars. And at least one of those spots is between his shoulders.

It occurs to Bucky that _that’s_ what he’s seen peeking out from Shuri’s undercut when she wears her hair up: a darker mark, speckled with lighter patches, all across her scalp.

Stars, like Steve’s. A whole field of them, like Stark’s night sky, like Pepper’s galaxy, like…

Bucky wonders how far it goes. Back in his and Steve’s day, the odds of finding even _one_ soulmate were pretty slim. It was weird enough to find the Howlies. And now Steve’s got all these people, a network of folks all around the globe. More soulmates than Stevie will know what to do with.

It makes Bucky smile to himself. He glances over at Steve and exchanges a look. Steve jerks his chin a little, raises his brows.

Bucky follows his look and sees N’Jadaka standing there with Shuri — a place of honor, for family, and close friends. He’s wearing Wakandan style robes, and for once his arms are bare.

His mark is like T’Challa’s — the dark smear and the lighter spots, but marred by small, precise scars that look ritualistic to Bucky. Instead of carrying it across his shoulders, it’s on his forearms, rising up to cover his biceps too.

Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve.

“Runs in the family, huh?” Bucky says softly, as T’Challa and Nakia kiss and T’Challa’s cousin stands by, watching.

“Guess so,” Steve says, sounding a little dazed.

Bucky wonders if Steve is thinking back to their childhood. Steve had always been a little sore about how he and his ma had such different marks. Some families had soul bonds tying them as well as family bonds — though Buck figured that was probably as much curse as blessing. There was no hiding from your soulmates and sometimes you wanted to be able to hide from your family.

Steve shakes his head a little, wonderingly. “I guess that’s why he’s got such faith in the guy, huh.” Then he frowns.

So maybe Steve is thinking about how N’Jadaka had tried to kill most of the people standing around him now. Maybe he’s wondering what it would do to you, trying to kill a soulmate, thinking — however briefly — that you’d succeeded.

It’s not just _like_ killing a part of yourself. It _literally is_ murdering a piece of yourself. That’ll change you in ways you don’t expect.

Bucky doesn’t have to wonder about that. He knows.

“I guess so,” he agrees.

 

* * *

 

 

One day Steve gets out of a council meeting and goes looking for Bucky, as usual. He finds him in the lab, chatting — not with Shuri, but with N’Jadaka.

Bucky’s got his arms crossed over his chest, and he’s wearing his Serious Talking and Listening face. (Despite what one might assume, Steve learned that face from Bucky, not the other way around.) N’Jadaka is shaking his head, face twisted up in a way Steve recognizes. Steve backpedals, not wanting to intrude, and tries not to listen in, but… well. His hearing is real good.

“Yeah but you've seen it,” N'Jadaka is saying. “What it's really like out there. You know. All this… talking, and outreach, it's Band-Aids, man. It doesn't change _shit.”_

And now Steve listens a little harder, worried despite himself.

“Maybe not,” Bucky says, in a voice that’s… borderline Winter Soldier in how emotionless it is.

“That’s it?” N’Jadaka says, not doing much to hide his outrage. “Jesus, why the fuck did I even—”

“Hey. You came to me, pal,” Bucky says mildly. “So what if you’re right, maybe the talking won’t change anything, but maybe it will, and if it does, no one has to die. Killing someone is about the only mistake you can never take back. I know you know that.”

Another long silence. They all know that N’Jadaka is plenty experienced with killing people. Steve’s seen the Dora all but hissing at him as he passes. If they were any less dedicated to the King, N’Jadaka wouldn’t have lasted a week. Shuri still only barely tolerates his presence in her lab. _Barely._

“But if it changes things, ain’t that worth it?” N’Jadaka says, which makes Steve’s whole body go a little tense with wariness, but...

Steve’s heard a lot of Villainous Declarations in his time. From Red Skull’s ‘ _we have left humanity behind’_ to Ultron’s _‘peace in our time,’_ Steve knows the sound of a fella about to give global domination a whirl. N’Jadaka doesn’t sound like any of them. He just sounds… tired.

“Oh yeah, killing _changes_ things alright,” Bucky says, and there’s a bitterness in his voice that Steve’s never heard before. “Changes the whole fucking _world._ I _changed the world_ for seventy years. It was a real gas.” Steve picks up the faint rasp of Bucky scrubbing his metal palm over his stubbly cheek. “Mostly it just changed me.”

Steve puts his fist over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut.

Bucky sighs. “You should talk to T’Challa. He’s your soulmate, right? He’s _family.”_

A pause.

“Oh,” Bucky says, slow and dawning, like he’s getting it. “That’s why you came to me. Because _he’s_ a good guy… And there are things you don’t want him to know.”

Bucky sounds like he understands that particular line of reasoning from personal experience, and doesn’t Steve feel _that_ like a knife to the heart?

A mumbled _yeah,_ so quiet even Steve can barely hear it.

“Well, believe me, I get _that,”_ Bucky says.

And for the first time Steve finds himself wondering — hard as it was to _be_ Captain America, how hard was it to be Captain America’s _soulmate?_ It was a hell of a standard for Steve to live up to, but it’s never occurred to Steve that it had to be a hell of a standard for _Bucky_ to live up to. How many times has the sticky tar feeling of his own inadequacy been shared? How long have they been passing that feeling back and forth between them, with no end in sight?

N’Jadaka’s voice, hushed and urgent now: “I don’t know how to talk to T’Challa about this shit.”

“There’s no _how_ about it. It’s gonna suck, but you still have to do it. Even if you say it wrong, he’ll understand.”

“But—”

“I don’t know enough about this shit to give you good advice on how to win this fight. If you need me, if the King needs me, I’ll be there, but I’m old man, you know?” That self deprecating twist, familiar. They aren't as old as their birth certificates say — except when they are. “I’m kinda done with fighting.” A pause. “Ain’t you done fighting, kid?”

“I don’t know,” N’Jadaka says, and Steve remembers answering a different question the same way. N’Jadaka sucks in a breath, slow, and lets it out fast. “How do you know? If the fight’s not over, I should be out there, right? Atonement or redemption or whatever, I gotta—”

“Kid,” Bucky says. “That kind of thinking is just another thing to carry. You’re carrying _enough.”_

Steve backs away further, and wonders how many times Bucky has told that to himself.

 

Later, over dinner at their apartment in the city, Steve asks: “So how’s N’Jadaka doing?”

People sometimes forget that Bucky is just as quick on the uptake as Steve is. He makes a face. “Ah. So. You _did_ come by the lab today.”

“I didn’t want to intrude,” Steve says.

“So ya eavesdropped instead?”

“How’s he doing?” Steve repeats, refusing to be shamed for this. Eavesdropping hurts no one, and he wouldn’t have listened at all if he hadn’t heard the phrase ‘it’s Band-Aids,’ which gave him chilly flashbacks to Alexander Pierce — and actually that kind of made sense, given that Pierce had run the CIA for a while.

Bucky puts a chunk of Wakandan lamb in his mouth and chews for a long time, thinking. Steve knows better than to interrupt.

“He’s been trying to make it up to Shuri,” Bucky says. “For, you know, throwing her brother off a cliff, and almost killing her, and… the rest of it. She’s not making it easy on him. And he’s trying to help T’Challa and Nakia with the mission, but they’re… you know. Together. And disgustingly happy. And he’s in a foreign country. He speaks the language, he knows the customs, but it ain’t home. Yet. Given the givens, he’s doing real well.”

“Should we be worried about him?” Steve says, and he can hear that he’s got the Captain America voice on, a little. So sue him, there’s an ex-rogue-CIA-agent in the palace and Steve is protective of all his friends, and T’Challa is one of those friends.

“Nah,” Bucky says. “I mean, _yeah,_ but not like you mean. Trying to kill a soulmate really takes it out of you.”

Steve’s heart twists, just a little. He’s remembering the feeling of that fist in his face, but also that feeling — even before he knew it was Bucky — that killing the Soldier would be killing a piece of himself. “Takes it out of you?” he says, a little wry.

Bucky nods. “The fight,” he clarifies. “It takes the fight out of you.”

 

* * *

 

 

N’Jadaka is actually a real smart guy, which makes sense to Bucky. He and Shuri are related after all — soulmates, in a tangential kind of way. He’s got a way of coming at a problem like a charging elephant until he hits something he can't move. Then he turns into a real snake.

It reminds Bucky of The Soldier, and Bucky means that in the nicest way he can. When the Soldier got a target, he would find a way to kill it, and if it didn't work, he would try to find another way to kill it, and if that didn't work, he would find another way until something stuck. N'Jadaka has a similar kinda philosophy.

So when Bucky gets stuck on a project he’s helping Shuri with, he goes looking for N’Jadaka to bounce some ideas off. It's an engineering project, prosthetics work. N'Jadaka has his own engineering degree, and they're both real familiar with the ways that Vibranium interacts with human biology.

He's thinking about how to solve the feedback problem when he knocks on N'Jadaka's door and doesn't immediately get an answer. He’s pretty sure N’Jadaka is in there, but…

“Griot?” Bucky calls to the ever-present palace AI.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” it replies.

“Is N'Jadaka…” Bucky pauses, trying to think how to phrase it. “Okay to receive guests?” Bucky's well aware that some days you just don't want anyone to bother you. Some days you just can't have people in the room.

There's a moment of pause as Griot processes this. “I believe he just didn't hear you, Sergeant.”

“Will you let him know I'm—”

Before he can finish that sentence, the door to N’Jadaka's quarters open. The kid himself is standing there, wearing a—

“Sorry man, I was watching the game, I didn't hear you.”

“Is that a baseball jersey?” Bucky asks, staring at the shirt.

N'Jadaka looks down at himself. “Yeah.”

“You're watching a baseball game?”

N'Jadaka shifts his weight, then shrugs. “Yeah?”

“Who’s your team?” Bucky asks, scrunching his nose in query at the bright yellow shirt with it’s green embroidered _A._ The Philadelphia A’s logo had been like that, but white and purple—

“The A’s,” N’Jadaka says, then clarifies: “The Oakland Athletics.”

“The _Oakland_ Athletics?” Bucky sighs in exasperation. “Why can't teams just stay in one fucking place.”

N’Jadaka’s eyebrows go up. “What?”

Bucky ignores this. “Are they any good?”

“Honestly?” N'Jadaka raises a hand, wobbles it in the air. “Not as good as they used to be. But not bad either.”

“Alright. Stay put. I'm gonna go get Steve.”

“Hold up. What?”

“Unless you don't want company, but there's no way I'm missing out on the chance to watch baseball with someone who actually cares about baseball. Do you know how rare that is in this century?”

“Way to make me feel like an old man.”

“Welcome to the club.”

 

By the time the next inning starts, they're all three parked in front of the projected game. The Oakland A’s are playing against the Yankees, which just makes it better. Bucky and Steve still hate the Yankees. It’s the kind of feeling that doesn’t go away easy.

Bucky stares at N'Jadaka and Steve arguing strategy and statistics and batting averages and yeah, it's tempting to just roll with it, to just let it be, and pretend that they’re in some alternate universe version of 1938 but he has to ask:

“Seriously though, I thought nobody under the age of 50 liked baseball anymore.”

“It's a perfectly good game!” Steve protests.

“I was not asking you, Steve,” Bucky says.

N'Jadaka chuckles and shakes his head. “Baseball’s not always my thing, but I like the A's. I remember watching the ‘89 World Series with my old man and my mom? It's one of my earliest memories, and the A's won. Beat the Giants. It was a big deal. I think it was the first sports thing that I really got into, you know? I was like four, barely had any idea what was going on, but I still knew it was important.”

Bucky nods, then kicks Steve. “You remember that game we went to in... God, whenever it was. We snuck in, and it was the Dodgers versus the Yankees, and—”

“God,” Steve groans. “We got our asses handed to us, and after all that talk about how that was gonna be our year. The shame of it.”

Bucky laughs and nods. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Did I—”

“—Start a fight with some Yankees fans? You sure did, pal. And after they beat us fair and square."

“They had all the _money,_ what’s fair and square about that?”

N’Jadaka is grinning, and looks more relaxed than Bucky's ever seen him. “How disappointed were you two when you woke up in the future and found out about the Dodgers?”

Bucky and Steve groan in unison, clutching their hearts.

“Fury took me aside and explained it personally,” Steve says. “Frankly that was the only part of me waking up that they handled _well.”_

“I still haven't recovered,” Bucky admits. “I can't even — fucking L. A.? Seriously?" He groans again, letting his head fall back. “What a travesty.”

“Brooklyn's got a basketball team now,” N’Jadaka says. “The Nets. But they used to play in Jersey.”

Steve and Bucky make identical stinkfaces.

“You might like them!” N’Jadaka protests. “We’ll watch it when the season starts. Who knows, maybe you two can learn to like a more modern sport."

“What about hockey?” Bucky says. “I like hockey.”

“I know. It's not your fault,” Steve says soothingly. “You were brainwashed by Russians.”

 

When the game is over and they part ways, N'Jadaka says: “Hey, you two... thanks.”

“You're the one who let us watch baseball on your TV,” Bucky points out. Steve pushes his hand over Bucky's face.

“He means you're welcome. And thanks, N’Jadaka. It's been a while since we've had anyone to talk baseball with.”

“Call me Erik,” the kid says. He makes a face. “At least, when we're watching baseball.”

“Sure,” Bucky says. “No problem.”

They wave and part ways. The door closes behind them.

They’re halfway down the hall when Bucky nudges Steve with his elbow. “Good?” he asks.

Steve nods. “He's kind of a fish out of water here, too, isn't he.”

“Not really Wakandan, not really American...” Bucky shrugs. “It's a tough way to live.”

“We should do Thanksgiving this year,” Steve blurts. “Is that too corny?”

“C’mon, Thanksgiving wasn't even a thing when we were kids.”

“It was a thing when _he_ was a kid.”

Bucky considers. “Do they even have turkey here?”

“Eh, we’ll figure something out.” Steve elbows him. “This is good, right?”

“For him to have someone to talk to? I mean, aside from T’Challa and Nakia and the rest of ‘em…” Bucky shrugs. “Probably.”

“I mean for you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says, shrugging his shoulders unevenly. “I mean you can't be the only one of us with bonus soulmates, right?”

It takes Bucky a few seconds to realize that Steve has stopped dead in the hall. He turns back to face Steve and gives him a quizzical look. Steve is already giving him an equally quizzical look.

“What?” Bucky asks.

“What do you mean?" Steve says.

Bucky shrugs again. “I mean, you got a lot of soulmates. Even by modern standards, I think. You got, what... all of the Avengers. You had all the Howlies. Now there's T’Challa and Nakia — I know you and her have a standing coffee-and-social-justice-issues friend-date.”

“We don't drink coffee, the coffee industry is bad for the environment.”

Bucky sighs. “Of course you don't.”

“They're your soulmates too, Bucky,” Steve insists.

Bucky scoffs. “No they're not. Sam, _maybe,_ but—”

“Yes they are,” Steve insists. “You and I have the same mark, Bucky. And if we do, then you've got the same potential with all of them that I do.”

“Potential isn't a bond, though,” Bucky says. “It's not just the mark that matters, you've got to put in the work. I barely know most of the Avengers.”

“Potential matters too. If the potential is there, then... then you're not alone.”

Bucky can’t quite meet Steve’s eye. “I know I'm not alone.”

Steve gives him a narrow look, like he's deciding whether or not to believe that statement.

“I know,” Bucky repeats, more firmly. “I've got you.”

“You've got other people too. If you think Natasha wouldn't kill for you, you're fooling yourself.”

Bucky scoffs again. “She'd kill for a good plate of nachos. I don't take it to heart, you know?”

“A good plate of nachos is hard to come by,” Steve says loftily.

Bucky elbows him, and Steve hits back, punching Bucky in the bicep. They tussle the rest of the way back to their rooms.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve finds Erik hanging around more and more as time goes on. It’s odd, but not unwelcome. The kid’s got more issues than National Geographic, and for some reason, Bucky is the one he feels he can talk to about it. They’ve maybe got some similar stuff on their consciences. Sure, Erik wasn’t brainwashed by Nazis, but Bucky has hinted to Steve that his HYDRA “training” bears some horrifying similarities to the “training” Erik got.

That information had filled Steve to the brim with formless, senseless, protective _rage._ Not just that people had hurt Bucky, he already knew that, and had plenty of rage about it too. This was rage on Erik’s behalf. And it wasn’t even just that he’d suffered at the hands of _the American Government._ Heck, _Steve_ had suffered at the hands of the American Government. Bucky _certainly_ had.

No, this was different. It was like—like someone had come after his—his _kid_ or something. Which, upon reflection, is a little embarrassing, since Erik is — biologically at least — _only three years younger_ than Steve.

Except that Erik _is_ much younger than them. Not in years, but in his… journey, for lack of a better word. Steve doesn’t want to say it’s like having a kid, because Erik _isn’t_ their kid, obviously, but there’s a definite… mentor-student dynamic developing between him and Bucky.

Which isn’t to say that N’Jadaka _can’t_ talk to T’Challa and Nakia. Whatever stumbling block was keeping him from talking to them, he seems to have gotten past it. Even Shuri and Ramonda are less frosty towards him. They’re working it out. Of course they are. They’re soulmates. They’re the people he can talk about his future with.

Bucky’s the guy Erik can talk about his _past_ with. In the end, Bucky and Erik both two kids from the wrong side of town who got chewed up and spat out by war. They’re both learning how not to default to violence. They both saw things they shouldn’t have seen and did things they wish they’d never done.

 

“It’s kinda nice,” Bucky admits one day as they’re getting ready for bed.

Steve can’t answer because he’s brushing his teeth, but he gives Bucky a questioning look in the mirror. Bucky quirks half a smile.

“He’s got a long way to go before he can get home, right?”

That’s what they’d been talking about when Bucky went all quiet and thoughtful. The long way home from war, and whether N’Jadaka is going to be able to make it. In some ways, he’s been at war as long as they have. Longer, probably. The street fights in 1930s Brooklyn ain’t got nothing on the shit that happened in 1990s Oakland.

Steve nods, says “mhm?” as best he can around his toothbrush.

Bucky’s still smiling. “So it’s nice to look back and help someone on the same road. Nice to see how far I’ve come too. I remember when I was as angry as him, you know? Well, I guess you _do_ know.”

Steve chuckles and nods, then freezes. He catches his own eyes in the mirror. They look wide, alarmed. The feeling bubbling up in him shows on his face before he can name it. Surprise.

Steve realizes he can’t remember the last time he felt _angry._ Not that he hasn’t been angry on Erik’s behalf, but it’s not like it used to be. Not at all.

Bucky is laughing at him like he knows. Since Steve can feel Bucky’s amusement creeping in at the edges of his own chest, there’s a good chance that Bucky _does_ know what Steve was thinking.

Steve spits out his toothpaste. “Ha ha ha,” he grumbles. “So I guess this isn’t the first time you’ve done this song and dance huh?”

“Figure it won’t be the last.” Bucky leans in and presses a kiss against Steve’s temple, then turns and leaves the bathroom. Steve watches his back, the red star there between his flesh shoulder and the metal one.

But the thought sticks with him as they keep getting ready for bed.

When did he stop being _angry?_ He’d been angry from the time he was born. He was angry long after he met Bucky, long after the serum too. Anger had been the fire that kept him from staying down, he’d thought. Righteous fury is kind of his hallmark.

When did it drain away? And if he isn’t angry anymore, then what’s left?  Why doesn’t he feel empty?

Bucky spoons in behind him and Steve pulls his arm up like a favorite stuffed animal. Bucky’s sleepy breaths huff against the back of his neck. Steve basks a little in the feeling, like he’s wrapped up in Bucky. He doesn’t think he’d ever be able to be this vulnerable with anyone else, but this…

Maybe he’s just happy now. Maybe he can just be happy. Maybe he doesn’t have to be anything else.

 

Still. The thought keeps him awake, chasing itself around his skull and making him fidgety long after Bucky’s breaths have evened out and he rolled away.

Who is Steve Rogers without his anger? Who is he when he’s _at peace?_ It feels weird to be happy, just happy, with no imminent threat hanging over their heads. Steve doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, without the background hum of _when will the next mission be?_ hovering on the edge of his consciousness.

 

It’s the first night of many like that.

 

* * *

 

 

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky mumbles into his pillow, reaching out in the dark and smushing his palm over Steve’s face. “You gotta sleep, pal.”

They’re lying in the dark but Steve’s not sleeping and Bucky can tell. Steve’s had insomnia off and on all their lives, but it’s been particularly bad lately.

Steve tugs Bucky’s hand down and kisses it. “Sorry. M’I keepin’ you awake?”

“I swear sometimes I can actually _hear_ you thinking.” He can’t — even a bond as strong as theirs doesn’t really work like that — but Steve’s insomnia is an antsy feeling that doesn’t belong in Bucky’s head.

“I just…”

Bucky sighs heavily and turns his face. He only has one eye open, glaring balefully at Steve. “You just what,” he says flatly.

Steve blinks at him, eyes wide and pale in the dark. “I just… I keep thinking, what’s gonna happen next?” Steve says.

“Well hopefully at least one of us will get some damn sleep,” Bucky grumbles.

“But then I think…” Steve swallows and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. If Bucky didn’t know better he’d say Steve was scared. “What if the answer is… nothing, you know?”

“What a tragedy,” Bucky says. “No disasters. No life threatening catastrophes. What will we do. Oh no.”

Steve’s throat bobs. Bucky feels the tiny edge of anxiety like it’s curling through him, but it isn’t. He picks his head up, pushes up onto his elbows.

“Shit,” he says, marveling. “You actually think that, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry.” Steve gives him a miserable kicked-puppy look. “I know you don’t—”

“You seriously telling me that you can’t sleep because you’re scared there _won’t_ be another apocalypse?”

“I feel like they’re putting me on the shelf, Buck.”

Bucky squints so hard his eyes squeeze completely closed. “You put yourself on the…” He frowns, shakes his head, and fails to come up with a better, less rhyme-y way to end the sentence. “...shelf.”

Steve glares over, all defensive and prickly like he’s 5’4” again. “This isn’t a joke.”

Bucky groans and drops his head, face down. “It’s the damn apartment all over again,” Bucky tells his pillow.

“You know what I mean, Buck—”

_“Puttin’ me on the shelf_ he says,” Bucky mumbles. “Like it wasn’t his choice to put the shield down, like it wasn’t his _decision—”_

“—Am I supposed to just _do nothing?_ Just _keep_ doing _nothing—”_

“—Like it wasn’t the _best damn idea_ he’s had since 1937,” Bucky continues, a little louder, talking over him.

“—doing nothing _indefinitely?”_ Steve says, finishing his thought. His voice is finally showing the shrill edge of panic that Bucky already feels from him.

Bucky picks up his face. “Would that be so bad?”

“Come on, what’s the point of all this—” he waves expansively at himself, the breadth of him, the heroic bulk, “—if not to _help?”_

Bucky scoffs in disbelief. “Oh I don’t know, pal, enjoy the sunshine? Pick flowers to put in your soulmate’s cute fucking hair?” Bucky waves at his head, where his hair is just starting to get long enough to braid again. “Just turn air into CO2?” He glares. “Are you seriously asking me what’s the point of being healthy if not to throw yourself under a bus?”

“Well when you say it like that it sounds stupid,” Steve mumbles, looking down at his big hands fiddling with the embroidery on the blanket.

“That’s cuz it _is_ stupid, pal. Jesus.” Bucky pushes up and twists around to sit properly. “Steve—”

“I became Captain America so I could _right wrongs,_ if there’s anything we’ve learned from being here — from T’Challa, from Sam, from Erik, it’s that there’s still a helluva lot of wrongs in the world that need—”

“—fixing,” Bucky agrees. “You’re right, but not from us, not like that. Look, If you’re on the shelf, it’s because you don’t use a chainsaw to put in a nail. Bringing _you_ to every single battle is like… breaking up a bar fight with a bazooka. You’re just gonna make things worse.”

Steve sighs. “I know.”

“I  know you know. This is why you gave Sam the shield. Stepping back _is_ doing something, sometimes.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah.”

Bucky stares at him for a moment, debating. Then, he pulls out the big guns. “You think that shit about me?”

Steve looks sharply up at him, big brows coming together in confusion. “What?”

Bucky nods at him. He _knows_ that Steve doesn’t but... “You heard me. You think I’m wasting my fucking talents puttering around in Shuri’s lab?”

Steve goes a little pale. They both know that Bucky’s talents lie solidly in the range of murder. “No,” Steve says firmly. “You’ve earned whatever rest you want, pal.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “And you haven’t?”

“It’s not…” Steve trails off, but Bucky already knows.

He sighs heavily. “...what you want. Of _course_ it’s not what you want.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, even more miserably. “God, this place is a paradise on earth, and you’re here, and I got a good job. I _like_ helping with the negotiations, I feel like I’m doing good that doesn’t revolve around violence for once. I don’t know why I can’t just _be happy.”_ He throws up his hands. “I can’t sleep because there might _not_ be another apocalypse. What the hell is _wrong_ with me?”

“Oh honey,” Bucky says, condescending as shit because he can’t help himself sometimes. Steve can be _so stupid_ sometimes. “There’s always gonna be something else. Fuckin’ aliens or whatever. A truly bazooka-worthy situation. I’m sure the next disaster is already on its way.” Bucky reaches out and puts his hand on Steve’s cheek. “If they need you, you’ll be there.”

Steve looks at him, and Bucky can’t quite tell if Steve’s just emoting extra hard, or if he’s feeling it through their bond, but he can just tell that this thought makes Steve feel better. He can also tell that Steve feels guilty as hell for feeling that.

“It’s just the peace between wars, pal. You’re not obsolete, we still need you. You’re just on sabbatical. Take the rest while you can,” Bucky tells him, and Steve visibly, guiltily relaxes. Bucky pats his cheek. “Now get some fuckin’ sleep, you don’t want to be all tuckered out when the next apocalypse arrives.”

Steve leans up for a kiss before letting Bucky pull him into the position of little spoon.

They both sleep better.

 

And lo and behold Steve isn’t at all tuckered out when the next apocalypse rears its ugly head.

 

 

 

 

 

###  **vii - thabit: fixed star**

_**Sonnet 116: The Soulmark Sonnet**_  
_By William Shakespeare_  
  
_Let me not to the mark of a twinned soul_  
_Admit impediment. Love plants its sign,_  
_We grow together. All the parts made whole_  
_May never break asunder nor resign._

_O no! It is an ever fixed star;_  
_A compass needle that may ne’er be bent_  
_From off its course. Though men may seek to mar_  
_It, all is vain, for marks are heaven sent._

_They do not lie, but neither do they tell_  
_Of what they know. Their language never heard_  
_and never writ, but felt like how the bell_  
_Doth feel the clapper strike the final word._

_If this be error and upon me proved,_  
_I never writ, nor no man ever loved._

 

 

 

“It wasn’t even a good plan,” Bucky complains, when all is said and done, and Thanos is defeated. “Kill all the soulmates? How the fuck would that work? You’d kill half the population. And what about the people with more than one soulmate? Kill all but one? What was his plan after that? It’d be chaos.”

“How is _losing your soulmate_ supposed to _make you free?”_ Steve says. He’s building up a head of steam about it now. They’re back at the guest quarters, and it turns out Steve’s anger wasn’t gone at all, just in hibernation, because it’s out in force now. He sits down hard on the bed, in just his uniform pants and undershirt, and starts pulling at his boots with sharp movements. “One jerk with a bad soulmate taking it out on everyone else just like that!” Steve snaps his fingers.

“Hey,” Bucky says. Steve feels him sit on the bed beside him. “As a jerk I find that offensive.”

“As someone who _lost their soulmate,_ I find the whole idea _pretty fucking offensive.”_

Bucky’s hand presses against the side of Steve’s face, turning his head. Steve’s glare softens only slightly at the sight of Bucky, smiling up at him. He’s got that dopey look on his face, like he always does when Steve’s hand is swiping across his back in steady, even strokes. Now, sometimes, he has it even when Steve isn’t touching him. His hair is still a little clumpy with blood or ichor or whatever comes out of an alien with four arms, two legs, and more teeth than anyone knows what to do with. Make a necklace, maybe.

That's not the point. The point is that one of them could've died today, because of one raisin-faced asshole with more power than sense. The point is that Steve is _mad as hell_ about it. The point is that Bucky is smiling at Steve like he hung the moon.

“What?” Steve says, trying to hold onto his rage in the face of this soft smile. He's not being very successful. He thinks about Bucky, leading N’Jadaka away from all his anger with patience and humor. He thinks of N’Jadaka and Nakia fighting at T’Challa’s side. He thinks of Pepper in her Rescue suit out on the field, fighting side by side with Tony and a kid dressed like a _spider,_ for some reason. The reunion with Tony had been rushed, but heartfelt. Healing. And just when Steve thought things couldn't get better (or weirder) Thor and Loki had come blasting out of the sky with a talking tree and honest-to-God raccoon, and... 

Steve's heart is still soaring. They're all _here_ again, all of them at his side. All his soulmates. Whatever else they were, and even if what he and Bucky had was _more_ and _deeper_ , that didn’t change facts. He knew his soulmates when he met them and he’d met them on the field earlier today.

He thinks of Nat coming out of nowhere with blue blood on her face and blocking a slash that might have taken his head off otherwise. He thinks about Sam falling out of the sky, and the way Steve had felt the juddering impact in his own bones, and had gone running to the downed red-white-and-blue wings. Sam is fine, but it’s enough to remind Steve that he’s supposed to be angry.

“What?” he says again.

“Nothing,” Bucky says.

“Don't do that,” Steve says gravely. “One of us coulda ended up dead today. No point letting things go unsaid.”

“You're a real ray of goddamn sunshine, you know that, Rogers?” Bucky doesn't stop smiling.

Steve gives him a look. “Serum made me bigger, not nicer.”

“Don't I fucking know it.”

He's _still_ smiling. What is he _thinking_ about that's making him _smile_ like that? _“What?”_

“You're pretty when you're pissed off.”

“Oh my god, you _asshole—”_

“I love you,” Bucky says, almost before Steve’s sentence is fully out of his mouth.

It shouldn’t mean anything, at this point, should it? After everything they’ve done, everything they’ve been through. They’ve been together for almost a hundred years. They're _soulmates._ It's on their _skin._ It isn’t a _surprise._ It’s just that they don’t talk about it. It never needed saying.

Bucky is staring at him, still smiling that big, dopey smile. “You gonna say it back, punk?”

He does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_the end_

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not have done this without Whiskersthemouse and of course Verbalatte, who did a heck of a lot more than art -- beta reader, sensitivity reader, cheerleader, the whole package. 
> 
> Also a HUGE thank you to the mods for this challenge -- the SAUBB was my first big bang and I had such an amazing experience.
> 
> Final thank you to all of you guys who flooded my inbox with kudos and comments, I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR GOODNIGHT.
> 
> I have [a tumblr](https://girlbookwrm.tumblr.com/) and [so does V](https://verbalatte.tumblr.com/), come say hi and don't forget to reblog v's amazing arts for this story!


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